


좋아

by bunnoculars



Category: SHINee
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-10
Updated: 2018-06-17
Packaged: 2019-05-20 11:15:58
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 26,157
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14893598
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bunnoculars/pseuds/bunnoculars
Summary: Jonghyun and Taemin are the only two people in the world who know that they're in love with each other. A series of vignettes about their relationship, based on the tracklist ofShe Isand set around its creation.





	1. She Is

**Author's Note:**

> Chose to use the Korean title of the album for my own because of all Jonghyun's songs, "She Is" is one of the very few that is non-gender neutral. Choa ("good" or ~like) fits the story anyway, so it works out. idk, just feel a little self-conscious about it lol.
> 
> Anyway. Normally I'm able to predict how long a fic is going to be based on the outline. This thing was supposed to be 18k...but somehow it ballooned into ~25k and I'm not sure how that happened? But it did? So instead of posting it all in one piece as originally intended, I've turned the sections into chapters.

The doorbell buzzes.

Taemin blinks water out of his eyes, checks his face in the mirror to make sure he got everything clean, that he isn’t going out there looking like a crazy person, and then makes a run for it. Too late, he realizes his bangs are still pinned back, and remembers he left the makeup remover out on the vanity and his clothes on the floor, and his phone is still in one of his pockets, too, and if he doesn’t save it from himself now it’ll end up in the wash.

He gets there in time.

Jonghyun huffs impatiently and pushes past him. Taemin catches the door before it can slam shut behind him, keeps hold until it snicks shut, then turns to find Jonghyun kicking off his shoes and shrugging out of his jacket.

“Did you forget the passcode? Minho hyung and Jinki hyung are already in bed,” Taemin says.

“Those two can sleep through anything,” Jonghyun retorts, but he gets the message, keeps his voice low. Taemin moves on, asks if he’s hungry, and Jonghyun frowns at him. “You didn’t wait for me?”

“Minho hyung has to get up tomorrow, and Jinki hyung just went ahead and ordered chicken.” Jonghyun just gives him a look, completely unimpressed. Taemin steers him out of the entryway, piles on, “His drama didn’t hit 25 percent today, so he used me as an excuse instead. It was only half a point short too. You know how he gets, you can’t ignore him,” but the set of Jonghyun’s shoulders tells Taemin he’s the only one who has that problem. And then, when they’ve reached the kitchen and Jonghyun turns his eyes on him again, he plays his last card. Pouts. “You’re lucky I didn’t go to bed too.”

Like magic, Jonghyun’s face softens. “You’re that tired?”

“Mm.”

Tired is an understatement. He’s verging on twenty-four hours without sleep, and now that the euphoria of his first win with “Press Your Number” has faded, he’s crashing. Hard.

“Sit with me? I haven’t eaten yet.” Taemin nods and Jonghyun breaks into a smile, says, “I wonder what they have in the fridge~” like he expects to find anything other than beer and kimchi and month old takeout they’re too scared to touch. Like Kibum’s still living here or something.

Still, Taemin goes to take a look, peering over Jonghyun’s shoulder. To his surprise there’s a batch of his own mother’s banchan staring back at him, blue tupperware with his name scrawled across scotch tape. Neither Jinki nor Minho mentioned she’d stopped by. Maybe it was days ago already. He’d told her he’s been sleeping here lately because at least that’s true half the time, and it was easier than explaining the other half, where he doesn’t sleep anywhere in particular. The car, couches in waiting rooms, the practice room floor, whenever and wherever he can find two or three hours to himself.

Jonghyun hesitates, glancing at him. Taemin ignores his eyes and the gravel in his throat, bullies his way in front of him and stacks the containers up to his chin. When he straightens he backs right into Jonghyun, and Jonghyun steadies him, hands on his hips and nose in his hair. He’s warm and solid and Taemin would be okay staying right there for a while, but instead he makes for the table. Jonghyun joins him with two pairs of chopsticks. Taemin goes to snap off the first lid, but Jonghyun beats him to it and he ends up grabbing Jonghyun’s hand instead. It’s easier to just let Jonghyun do it, so he does. And then it’s easier to eat, so he does that too, even though he’s not hungry and he ate like three days’ worth of calories a couple hours ago.

At some point Taemin realizes Jonghyun’s watching him. Which reminds him.

“You haven’t said anything about yourself, hyung.”

“Me?”

Jonghyun’s playing dumb, he has to be. There’s no way he forgot.

“Your meeting with creative,” Taemin prompts him. 

Right as he’s saying it, he realizes that maybe Jonghyun just didn’t want to talk about it, that Taemin’s the dumb one. Too late. He doesn’t have to ask how it went, because the answer is in the line of Jonghyun’s mouth, the jitter of his foot next to Taemin’s.

“Oh, that?” Jonghyun says, like it’s nothing, and that’s all Taemin needs to know. “They said the same thing you did, when I first told you about it.”

And Jonghyun took it just as badly as he did before, from the looks of it.

“SM doesn’t make sex albums, hyung,” Taemin says, because he doesn’t know what else to tell him. The third time isn’t the charm, though. Jonghyun won’t listen, and he’s not going to start now, his expression says as much. He doesn’t stop eating, though, and he doesn’t stop looking at Taemin, and Taemin can only take so much of him before his heart hurts and he wants to smile. “They didn’t make albums like _Base,_ either, or _Story Op._ You’re impossible, you make it so hard to say no to you.”

Jonghyun’s face goes strange, almost like he’s fighting not to laugh. 

“It’s not like I’m some kind of pervert. All pop music is sex music,” he says. Then he narrows his eyes, tilts his chin, gives Taemin a long look, and Taemin sits tight while Jonghyun takes him apart and puts him back together. It only takes a few seconds. “Are you going to pretend ‘Press Your Number’ isn’t sexy? Because it is, and you know it too.”

The song was a lot sexier before Taemin got his hands on it, reworked the lyrics into something he could say out loud, but it’s not like Jonghyun’s wrong, either. And it’s not like Taemin doesn’t know what he’s doing with his body, what it does to other people, watching him. The difference is it’s not about him. It doesn’t matter if he’s in the mood, doesn’t matter if dancing turns him on or tires him out, because no one else ever has to know. All Taemin has to give to his music are his blood, sweat, and tears, but Jonghyun never stops there. It’s like everything inside him has to find its way out, the more embarrassing, the more personal, the more painful to talk about the better. Sex is just the next thing.

It’s also sex.

“Look at you, you’re blushing,” Jonghyun says, so quietly. Taemin presses his fists to his cheeks on reflex, and then he’s not sure if his hands are cold or his face is on fire. Jonghyun doesn’t wait for Taemin to figure out if he’s playing with him or not, moves right along, says, “Anyway, I showed them some demos, but next time I’ll have to come back with lyrics, so they get a sense of how far I want to go. See how obvious they think I am, or if that’s just you.”

Taemin has some experience fighting SM, but he’s never gone to war with them the way Jonghyun has every single time his solos roll around. Their weapon of choice is bureaucracy, and if you say no to the smallest thing, they’ll try every single other way they can think of to bend it into yes, before they resort to compromise. When it comes to his music Jonghyun is just as bad, so he’ll be stuck in meetings until kingdom come. All Taemin hopes is that Jonghyun doesn’t go crazy before he gets his way. He’s already taking it personally.

“What are you going to do if they still don’t like it?”

Jonghyun makes a face, says, “I don’t care what they like, this is about what I like,” which, typical. It was a stupid question, he should’ve known Jonghyun wouldn’t be able to answer it. Taemin watches Jonghyun eat, gets comfortable while he figures out what to ask him next. He’s been sitting on his leg for long enough that it’s grown heavy and numb, and when he lets it down maybe he kinda sorta kicks Jonghyun in the shin. Jonghyun doesn’t do anything about it, just eyes Taemin. Then out of nowhere, “Did you change your shampoo?”

Jonghyun has this thing about smell.

“I ran out of mine so I stole Kibum hyung’s,” Taemin replies.

Jonghyun smiles like he can’t help himself. “Strawberry?”

“I don’t know. I think it’s from last year, it was all separated out, I had to shake it. My hair’s not even dry and it already feels greasy, the coordi noonas are gonna hate me tomorrow.”

And that’s more than he ever needed to say about it, but it’s okay, now Jonghyun’s laughing at him, hand over his mouth and eyes crinkling up.

When he can breathe again, the first thing Jonghyun says is, “You’ve got something here.” Taemin follows his fingers with his eyes, follows along on his own face. He doesn’t know he’s being stupid until Jonghyun sighs, “Aigoo,” and reaches across the table to get it for him, and it’s on the opposite side, because duh. Jonghyun holds him in place, tongue between his teeth, hands so warm and firm, and Taemin surrenders peacefully, closes his eyes and waits. And then maybe he forgets to open them again.

“Earth to Taeminnie. Are you falling asleep on me?”

“No,” Taemin says, blind and kind of happy that way.

All Taemin has to do is wait him out, and he’ll try something. Smush his face until Taemin’s lips pucker. Pinch his cheeks. Fluff his hair. Taemin waits, and he waits, and waits, and…nothing. Instead, Jonghyun’s chair scrapes against the floor and all of the sudden Taemin is free, Jonghyun’s gone.

He’s the first thing Taemin sees, standing over him. He takes Taemin by the elbow and Taemin figures he might as well get up, if Jonghyun’s done eating. Might as well put his chopsticks in the sink, but that’s as far as he gets, before Jonghyun gets ahold of him again, pushes him out of the kitchen, swats him on the butt and sends him to bed.

He’s been using Jonghyun’s lately, because somehow it’s only been like two weeks and he’s managed to bury his own in a mountain of laundry and other crap, and every time he makes it back here he’s too tired to deal with any of it. Tonight’s no different, so he strips and burrows under Jonghyun’s blanket. Then lies there and wonders if he should give Jonghyun room, or spread himself out and make him take it.

There’s nothing to that in the end. Jonghyun just rolls him over and over until his back presses against the wall, then climbs in next to him. It’s so dark with the lights off Taemin can’t even tell if Jonghyun’s smiling or not until his face is right there, and the moment’s already passed. He snuggles closer, closes his eyes again when Jonghyun’s a breath away.

He hears Jonghyun shift, his hair whisper against the pillow, feels Jonghyun’s nose brush his. And then all of the sudden Jonghyun’s saying, “You’re doing this to me on purpose,” and if he’s accusing Taemin of something he should tell him what, too. It’s only fair.

When Taemin says as much, Jonghyun gives him this look, like Taemin’s playing dumb, playing with him, something like that. He’s not, though.

“What?” he says again.

Instead of answering, Jonghyun reaches up and caresses his cheek. Then braces his thumb along Taemin’s jaw and forces his head back, and before Taemin knows what’s happening Jonghyun’s mouth is open on his throat and he’s biting down, too hard, too gentle, teeth pressing into Taemin’s skin and tongue on his pulse.

He’s still trying to catch up when Jonghyun lifts away, smirks at whatever he’s done to Taemin’s face, says, “There. That’s what you get.”

Taemin gives up. Just looks at him. Takes him in. Breathes.

He doesn’t know when he’ll be here again.

Jonghyun gives him maybe half a minute, before he closes the gap again and kisses Taemin, short and sweet. And again, and again, teasing Taemin’s lips open, fingers curling around the nape of Taemin’s neck and foot finding his under the blanket. Taemin lets Jonghyun have his mouth, cradles his leg between his own, winds his fingers into Jonghyun’s hair and holds on. Shuts his eyes and slips slowly, slowly into that halfway state. Jonghyun’s so warm and soft and close, touching him everywhere, and Taemin wastes energy wishing he were on the part where he’s just waking up instead of the part where he’s falling asleep. Wishes he could wake up to this, Jonghyun’s hands on him and his taste on his tongue, just once.

Jonghyun makes him forget all that. Brushes his lips across Taemin’s cheek and breathes in his ear, “I couldn’t even taste my food. I wanted to eat you instead,” and slides his hand down to Taemin’s shoulder, pressing him onto his back.

Taemin forces his eyes open. “Jinki hyung’s just across the hall.” And when Jonghyun’s eyes linger on his lips and he leans in to kiss him again, the thing he wants to say even less, “I’m tired, hyung.”

Jonghyun’s expression slips, some crazy jumble of frustration and betrayal and disbelief, but he doesn’t wait for things to make sense before he demands, “You can sleep after what you’ve done to me?”

So Taemin figures it out for him, grunts, “Mm.” All it takes is one look at Jonghyun’s face, perfect picture of outrage, and he has to turn over and hide his smile in the pillow, and suddenly it’s all so easy. Jonghyun is so easy.

Hand on his shoulder again. “Taemin-ah.” Jonghyun’s toes pushing into his calf, breath on the back of his neck, fingers digging in. “Taemin-ah~” Then Jonghyun flops onto his back, mattress groaning and shaking and sighing in his place. “You’re so evil, you make me so fucking crazy.”

“You love it,” Taemin says. Jonghyun doesn’t deny it, but he doesn’t come back at Taemin with something else the way he’s supposed to, either. Taemin leaves it there long enough for the silence to grow lonely and Jonghyun’s eyes to fade from his skin. When he rolls over Jonghyun’s right where he left him, waiting for him. “I’m sorry, hyung. It’s been so long and I’m like this.” Jonghyun still likes the ceiling better than him, so Taemin tries again, presses his lips to Jonghyun’s shoulder, says into his skin, “Do you want me to do you?” More nothing, this time the kind that Taemin feels inside, and that’s it. “I can go back to my bed.”

He’s flipped the blanket off and raised himself onto his elbows when Jonghyun says in a rush, “Stay, I’ll be good,” and pulls him back down and into his arms again.

Taemin tries not to be bad. He should try to sleep.

A long time passes.

“Thank you for coming. I thought you still slept here a lot, but Minho hyung said he never sees you,” Taemin says. He doesn’t have to look, so words cost him nothing. “I’m sorry we didn’t wait for you.”

“I’m sorry I made you wait.” Jonghyun strokes his hair back from his face. “I’m so proud of you.”

Things get a little harder again. Just a little.

“I feel like it’s been forever, I never get to see you. But after this it’s your turn. Then you won’t have time for me.”

Right away Jonghyun tells him, “I’ll make time, if it’s for you,” and that only makes it worse, how much Taemin wants to believe him, how selfish he’s being, when he knows better. This is their first night together since promotions started, and Taemin never remembers to call or text or let Jonghyun know when he’s thinking about him. Jonghyun’s not thinking of himself, either, not right now. “Go to sleep already, I’m not going anywhere. I’ll still be here in the morning.”

Taemin won’t.


	2. White T-Shirt

Jonghyun has these sweatpants, soft and loose and worn. He’s had them for years, dark grey fading into light, gnarly fleece, threadbare knees. They hang off his hips and get caught underneath his heels. He wears them to bed sometimes. Sometimes to work, too, photo shoots and CF’s, anywhere they’ll have to change a million times.

He’s wearing them right now.

“Do you want something to drink?” Jonghyun asks.

“No beer,” Kibum says loudly from his bed. Taemin is pretty sure Jonghyun slept in that one last time they stayed in this dorm, but they’re never here long enough for that to matter.

Taemin never lets Jonghyun anywhere near alcohol if he can help it, and he doesn’t need anyone to tell him not to drink on a work night.

Jonghyun cranes back to give Kibum a look. “Yes, mom.”

“Water for me.”

Jonghyun digs his knee into Taemin’s thigh, gives him a five second head start before he asks again. “Taeminnie?”

“Pop,” Taemin says, without taking his eyes of the screen.

Jonghyun drops his controller and leaves his avatar to die. Gets up, stretches, and he’s in the corner of Taemin’s eye, and there’s nothing Taemin can do about it. The jut of his hipbones, the soft skin of his stomach, his ass as he walks away. And then he comes back, crosses in front of the television to hand Kibum his glass, and it’s so much worse, because Taemin can see everything. _Everything._ When Jonghyun sinks down next to Taemin, leans in against his side, says, “You’re going to fall into the TV,” Taemin’s still on his dick. It’s taking him forever to catch up, learn how to talk again.

In the meantime Jonghyun snaps Taemin’s pop open and slurps up the fizz. Presses it to his wrist until Taemin gets a moment, tricks Taemin into looking at him again. Smiles at him when he does.

There are half moons under his eyes. Taemin doesn’t know if they’re from the past week he’s spent with his album in the studio, or from their six a.m. flight this morning, Jonghyun’s bedtime. It doesn’t matter anyway, because all that could change and there’d still be something else keeping Jonghyun up. There always is.

“Are you bored, hyung?” Taemin says, because he can’t ask Jonghyun if he’s tired. He learned a long time ago just how stupid a question that is.

Jonghyun says he isn’t, and after a while he re-enters the game. They both suck at Splatoon, but that’s not the point, and anyway, it works out as long as Minho and Jinki don’t get involved. Kibum wants nothing to do with it. As the sun sets on Tokyo and night creeps in and the TV stays the same, he wants less and less to do with them, too. And then finally one time they get in on another Turf War, and that’s one time too many, that’s the point of no return.

“Are you going to play all night?” Kibum snaps. Taemin’s not sure what to tell him, and Jonghyun doesn’t tell him anything, so Kibum cuts the lights and stands over them, face awash in pale light. “Turn the sound off, at least. I’m going to bed.”

Taemin feels for the remote and finds Jonghyun’s hand instead. There’s something to that, so he finds Jonghyun’s thigh next, hears his breath hitch, feels his muscles tense up. And then Kibum doesn’t go away, doesn’t move, just stares them down, gets quieter and quieter and scarier and scarier, so Taemin has to do something about it. He crawls over to the TV and fumbles for the mute button.

All that gets him is floorboards creaking under Kibum’s feet and a very pointed, “Thank you,” but it’s not like Taemin earned it. It’s not like he doesn’t know how Kibum feels, either. Jonghyun used to keep him up like this all the time back at their dorm in Seoul, and with the five of them in same room Taemin was always one bad night away from trying something desperate.

“Good night, hyung,” he says, one last thing before he returns to Jonghyun, returns to being a shitty roommate.

Out of nowhere Jonghyun ruins it. Pinches Taemin’s butt before he can turn around, says, “I shared a room with you for how long, and you never said good night to me.”

Taemin’s said good night to him plenty of times since, but Kibum doesn’t need to know that. All Taemin can do is go back to where Jonghyun wants him, the times where they slept in separate beds and Jonghyun babied him and Taemin still had to guess what he’d taste like. 

“We always talked until we fell asleep, when was I supposed to?”

“You guys won’t be doing that tonight,” Kibum cuts in. It only takes him a few more seconds to turn Taemin’s words totally inside out, and suggest, “You could try saying it to him now, Taeminnie.”

Jonghyun turns Taemin’s chin towards him, like he’s making sure whatever Taemin says to that, it’s to him. Makes it so easy to tell him, “I’ll say it later.”

Jonghyun’s being difficult, though, he’s shaking his head, sticking his lip out. “I want an upgrade. Good night kiss.” He’s only fucking around, the way he used to, but it doesn’t flutter in Taemin’s stomach or blow up his brain anymore. Just gets under his skin. “What?” Jonghyun says, and Taemin should probably stop staring at him, but he doesn’t. “We’re talking years, Taemin-ah, you have to pay interest.”

“With my body,” Taemin says.

Jonghyun’s mouth crimps. “Mm.”

About that.

Kibum chooses that exact moment to say, “If you two don’t shut up,” and a couple deep breaths later, “Just shut up. Please. While I’m being nice.”

After that there’s no more talking. Taemin and Jonghyun eat up cartoon violence on a technicolor spoon, until they completely lose the plot, and Taemin’s hands hurt and his vision blurs and finally Kibum lets out a soft snore. Taemin’s heart is pounding out of his chest by the time he gets brave enough to rest his head on Jonghyun’s thigh, and everything outside him slows down. He doesn’t look. Turns onto his side, and twists his shirt underneath his body, and lets Jonghyun fix it for him. Lets Jonghyun take him to the very edge, slide his hand over Taemin’s stomach and hip, slip his fingers under Taemin’s waistband like a dirty secret. Taemin doesn’t look. He stops playing and turns over again and buries his face in Jonghyun’s crotch. He thinks Jonghyun gasps, thinks he hears his controller hit the floor, but he doesn’t know anything right now. Just breathes him in, mouths at Jonghyun’s dick through his sweatpants and feels it grow hard against his cheek and wants it with his whole body.

Suddenly Jonghyun’s hand is in his hair, and he’s dragging Taemin away. A split second later he’s right there, flushed and dark-eyed, and Taemin has nowhere to hide, nothing to do but stare up at him and want him some more. He would do _anything._

“You can’t, Taeminnie.”

 

The night passes and a new day dawns and Taemin’s life is still right where he left it, waiting for him. It doesn’t care whether he’s slept, if he can meet Kibum’s eyes, or keep his off Jonghyun. It was never about him. 

“What do you think?”

“That you should have asked after the first time you played it,” Kibum says promptly. “And now that it’s like the fiftieth, I think it sucks. It’s terrible. I hate it. Boo.”

Minho’s smile gives him away before he even opens his mouth. “I don’t know, I think I need to hear it again before I can say. I didn’t know you were asking.”

While Kibum’s head explodes and Minho goes into survival mode, Jinki asks, “Is this one of yours?”

“SM gave it to me to look at,” Jonghyun replies. Taemin can feel his look, knows he’s keeping Jonghyun waiting. “Did they show it to you, too?”

“Nope.”

At least if they did, Taemin can’t remember. He tried something new this time around, said no to some things, but whenever he shot a song down there were three in its place. He must have gone through a million just to get them down to ten he felt good about.

Jonghyun’s been watching his face, and now he finds something there that makes him ask, “You don’t like it?” but Taemin’s not sure what.

“I don’t dislike it,” he says.

He doesn’t really have an opinion either way. Not about the demo on Jonghyun’s phone, or anything under the sun. He’s in that kind of mood. They’re winding down from the first rehearsal of the day, and all that separates them from the second is twenty-five minutes of sandwiches and caffeine in the waiting room they’ll use tomorrow night. Taemin’s a professional, he accepts that they have to go over every last detail like it’s the first time whenever they change venues, but that doesn’t mean he has to like it. He’s never going to understand the technical stuff, either. All he knows is what he has to do, and he knows that so well he should be able to do it in his sleep.

If only.

“It’s on trend. Creative says so,” Jonghyun tells him.

Taemin doesn’t even know how to quantify what he’s heard—country? Glam? Tropical house?—but he’ll take their word for it. Jonghyun’s, too, even though Jonghyun’s always tried really hard not to care about putting the pop in pop music. Even though Jonghyun’s solo career is supposed to be the one part of his life where he doesn’t have to be all things to all people.

Jonghyun doesn’t need Taemin to tell him to be himself, though. Taemin takes too long figuring out what else there is to say, and in the meantime Jinki fails at finding humor in it. Says sternly, “Shinee doesn’t follow trends, they make them,” and then, as an afterthought, “Are you selling out, Jonghyunnie?”

Jonghyun half-smiles, which is the best any of them can do for Jinki. “Should I?” he says, before he turns to Taemin and picks up where they left off. “I don’t dislike it, either. And they’re not pushing me too hard to promote with it.”

Not like they did with Taemin and “Press Your Number,” then. If he ever hears about Bruno Mars and the Stereotypes again for the rest of his life, it’ll be too soon.

“You know how it works, there’s give-and-take,” Jonghyun goes on, kind of helplessly, like Taemin could stop him anytime now. He grins. “You give them something, or they take everything. If I behave, they’ll okay ‘She Is,’ something like that.”

“You make it sound like you haven’t spent the last eight years working with them. They’re just people, hyung. You know them. I do too, and they’re not that bad,” Minho says, and to Taemin it seems like he’s coming out of nowhere, but he’s probably just making sense. He’s not wrapped up in the melodrama of going solo. “It’s SM’s album, too. They want you to do well, that’s the whole point.”

Jonghyun doesn’t give a shit. “They want me to make money.”

Kibum squawks, ruffles his hand through Jonghyun’s hair, says, “Aigoo. Are you saying you don’t?” and Jonghyun can’t come up with an answer that doesn’t turn him into a joke.

Taemin laughs at him, too. He can’t help himself, all the less when Jonghyun gets his hands on him, and Taemin is caught between trying to escape and watching Jonghyun fighting his own smile and losing, hard. By the time Jonghyun releases him, the others have long since moved on to their phones, the bathroom, the vending machines down the hall, somewhere, anywhere else, and only Taemin and Jonghyun and his song are left.

“What do you think, Taeminnie? Really.”

It’s kind of hard to think at all when Jonghyun’s already reaching for him again, this time to straighten his shirt and fix his hair, and Taemin has to return the favor even though all he wants to do is mess Jonghyun up some more. Still, Taemin tries for his sake.

“It’s your album, hyung. If you like it then I do too,” Taemin says, because that’s always the first thing. But that’s useless, so he tries again. “If you don’t…they have a million other songs in their vaults, you can keep them busy at least. You don’t have to pick a fight.”

Jonghyun laughs, tucks Taemin’s hair behind his ear, fingertips brushing against his skin. “I have a month, and that’s all. I have to produce. I want to. Not for them, either, for me.” And of all things he’s pouting now. “You really don’t like it, huh. If you did, you’d be so obvious about it.”

Taemin’s face heats. By this morning last night was five million years ago, but just like that, just one thing out of Jonghyun’s mouth, the feeling returns. He can’t do anything about it, so he stands there and lets Jonghyun fill him up, likes Jonghyun until he bursts. He wonders if Jonghyun can tell.

“I thought your whole thing this time is not caring what other people think,” Taemin manages.

“You’re not other people,” Jonghyun tells him, and it’s not a reminder, it’s a reproach, like Taemin should know better. Taemin wants to kiss him so badly. He wonders if he’s being obvious about that.

He’s supposed to be thinking. Jonghyun is waiting for him to answer.

“Right now it’s just the guide,” Taemin says finally. “If you make it yours I’ll get into it.”

That’s that.

Except it’s not, because when Taemin turns away from him, Jonghyun takes him by the wrist, hangs onto him, stops him in his tracks and says so quietly, “About last night…”

“I know, hyung,” Taemin says quickly.

_It can’t happen again, not like that. We could tell them. We should. It’s about time, it’s been a year already. This isn’t going away._

Liking Jonghyun is the easy part. Taemin doesn’t even have to try, he doesn’t have to do anything. There’s always something about Jonghyun. Always. His face, his voice, his smile, his touch. His music. His stupid sweatpants. Everything else is so hard, though, and even if Taemin knew what to do about any of it, neither of them has ever wasted the time they do have together on the million things keeping them apart. It’s a problem, a big one. Too big. It’s just going to get bigger, too, the longer they hold onto each other, the further they take this thing between them.

But right now it’s only their problem. Taemin doesn’t know how much he’ll have to hate himself if he makes it the others’, too.

“I never got my kiss,” Jonghyun says, instead of all the things he should. Then, “I couldn’t sleep.”

He never can. Taemin has never been able to give that to him, not when they shared the same room, not when they share the same bed.

“Tonight,” Taemin says.

This time when Jonghyun smiles at him, Taemin likes him so much it hurts. Jonghyun has to know, because he’s the same inside. It’s all right there on his face.


	3. Orbit

“Taemin-ah.”

Jonghyun’s noodles are going to bloat if he keeps this up. Every couple of seconds it’s something else. Taemin doesn’t mind, as long as Jonghyun doesn’t expect him to reply. He’ll talk when he’s done eating.

“Could you give me a ride to MBC later?” Taemin nods. That’s as much an answer as any words Taemin could give him, but all it does is make Jonghyun explain himself. “Manager Hyung had this family thing, so I said he could go.” Which, Jonghyun can’t just say that and not tell Taemin _what is going on._ Taemin chews off the noodles in his mouth, splatters his face with broth, fights to swallow, before Jonghyun heads him off, reassures him, “It wasn’t anything bad, don’t worry. His nephew threw up at school and his sister can’t get away.”

Okay. Good. That’s good.

Taemin lets Jonghyun wipe his face with his napkin. It’s rough against his skin, but not as rough as the wind, and Jonghyun’s fingers are as warm as the hoodie Taemin stole from him. The way Taemin sees it, the problem isn’t that they’re sitting at a food stall in the cold, the problem is that it’s supposed to be spring and Taemin is still being punished for not checking the weather. That and their lunch break is too short. This is the most Taemin has seen of Jonghyun in a week and a half. It’s also as far as they could go. They’re five minutes from the studio, and Jonghyun is still keeping one eye on his watch.

“What time?” he says. Blue Night starts at twelve, but Taemin doesn’t know how far MBC is from here after rush hour.

“Eleven.” Jonghyun hesitates, pausing in his ministrations. “Are you going to be at work until then?” 

Taemin nods again, because he will be now, and if the engineers have better things to do he can always bring “Sayonara Hitori” to the practice rooms at SM, just across the street. Jonghyun takes his hands away, eyes narrowing.

“Really? I’m not desperate, I can ask someone else. I don’t want to keep you.”

Taemin wants him to, though.

He just doesn’t know how to tell Jonghyun that, or even if it would mean the same thing to Jonghyun, hearing it, that it would for him to say it. He moves on. “How are you going to get home afterwards?”

“Nine-ssi can take me,” Jonghyun replies immediately.

“Are you going to ask her as nicely as you asked me?” Taemin says, instead of asking him if he was thinking ‘Taeminnie can take me’ earlier. Instead of telling him he could have just said that.

Jonghyun doesn’t think he’s funny, so Taemin hides his smile over his bowl and goes back to his udon. Jonghyun should too, but instead his eyes linger on Taemin, and he says, “If that’s okay with you,” and somehow he’s still talking about it.

“What?”

“If you don’t want me to go home with her, I won’t.” Taemin doesn’t get where this is coming from. He never said anything like that. Before he can find the words to tell Jonghyun as much, Jonghyun takes his silence as something else. Says, “I’ll call for a taxi,” and it’s a question. He’s asking now.

He’s asked Taemin this kind of thing before, just not about Nine. Taemin’s only met her a few times and she’s ten years his senior, but she’s so close to Jonghyun he feels close to her, too. And as much as Jonghyun likes her, Taemin is sure it’s not as a woman. But at the end of the day she’s not a man, either, and as far as Taemin knows, he’s the only man Jonghyun has ever been with. Jonghyun likes girls. Half his friends are girls, too, half of them are prettier than Taemin, and all of them could give Jonghyun things he’ll never be able to find with Taemin. Someone to show off to his friends. Someone to bring home to his mom. Scandal that wouldn’t ruin his whole life. 

If Taemin let it get to him he’d go crazy. And anyway, out of everyone, he’s the one Jonghyun picked. He’s the one who’s with him right now.

“I didn’t mean it like that, I was just asking, hyung,” Taemin tries, and he doesn’t realize he’s got that smile on his face again until Jonghyun’s expression sours.

“Fine. I was just saying too.”

That’s all. Jonghyun picks up his chopsticks and leaves Taemin behind. Stuffs his face like he’s trying to make up for lost time, eats his feelings. Doesn’t look up from his bowl until it’s time to go, and doesn’t look at Taemin again until it’s time to say goodbye.

They’re going to see each other again tonight, so Taemin just tells him where he parked.

 

“Taemin-ah.”

Taemin opens his eyes.

It takes time before the world comes back to him, and the second thing is Jonghyun, his hand on Taemin’s shoulder, gently shaking him awake. The first is the steering wheel jammed against his cheek.

“Hyung.”

“That’s it?”

Taemin levers himself up, stiff all over, crick in his neck. He tries shifting around, rolling his head, but all that gets him is a fresh sting of pain. His hand flies up to his neck, but Jonghyun reacts quicker, hand sliding up to grip his nape, fingers kneading at the nobs of his spine.

“Blue Night,” Taemin tries.

Wrong answer. Jonghyun’s face says so.

“If you’re going to nap in your car, make sure you lock it,” Jonghyun says impatiently. “Next time it won’t be hyung, it’ll be some creep.”

Taemin doesn’t know what kind of creep would be hanging around the SM parking lot at this time of night, but maybe he’s better off not thinking about it too hard.

“I didn’t plan on falling asleep, it just kinda happened.”

Jonghyun’s mouth tightens. “How long have you been waiting?”

Taemin doesn’t know.

“I’m sorry, Taeminnie,” Jonghyun says in a rush. While Taemin’s still processing that, Jonghyun lets go of him, stares at his knees. “I ran late, I lost track of time.”

“It’s fine,” Taemin tells him, because it is. Not because he expects Jonghyun to actually listen to him, or anything. “As long as we can still make it in time.”

Which, Taemin doesn’t even know what time it is. He starts the car. Eleven fifteen. Once he gets his seatbelt and peels out of the parking lot and into traffic, it’s all he can do to focus on the road instead of Jonghyun’s silence. Start and stop when the lights turn, instead of the moments where he can feel Jonghyun’s eyes on him and the moments where he can’t.

Finally Jonghyun comes out with it. “I forgot you.” And, “It’s not fine. I’m really sorry.” And when he looks Taemin in the face again, it’s only to say, “You can get mad at me, you know.”

“You think I don’t know that?” Taemin huffs, but when he glances at Jonghyun, Jonghyun doesn’t smile back. Just gives Taemin as little of his face as he can, leans against his window and pretends he’s more interested in the view he gets to see everyday than in Taemin.

He’s so fucking annoying. First Taemin was supposed to be jealous of Nine, and now he’s supposed to be jealous of Jonghyun’s work. And anything Taemin could say either way would just hurt them both, but maybe not saying anything is worse, maybe Jonghyun thinks Taemin is ignoring him. Taemin can’t win.

He’d be fine losing if that meant Jonghyun would talk to him again.

Instead, Jonghyun bites his tongue all the way to MBC, and Taemin has conversations with him in his head he can never figure out how to start for real. Normally it takes Taemin five to ten minutes to get rid of Jonghyun once they say goodbye, but tonight Jonghyun is halfway out the door before they even get that far.

“I’ll text you when I get home,” Taemin says quickly. On a different night Jonghyun would ask him to, then remind him at least fifteen times in between kisses.

“You say that, but you won’t, you never do,” Jonghyun snaps, quicker than Taemin can think, voice twisted up with the things he’s kept inside for the last twenty minutes. “Then I’ll spend all night trying to call you, just to check on you. Like I always do.”

“Fine. I won’t bother.” It just shoots out of him. Jonghyun opens his mouth to reply, but Taemin does not want to hear it, not anymore. “Don’t text me when you get home, either.”

“Fine,” Jonghyun says.

His door slams, and Taemin’s alone again. He’s been alone all day.

Taemin turns his blinker on, waits for his moment, then sneaks back into the stream of cars, turns on the radio, and joins the rest of Seoul on their trip to nowhere. He could listen to Jonghyun do his thing on Blue Night, but for now he sticks to things he understands. Flips stations until he finds a friend’s voice. Sings along, hits the high notes, puts his power face on, fails at rapping, turns it up when the beat drops, and moves his body as much as he can without causing an accident. Little by little, his breathing clears and his chest opens up, and by the time he closes the door to his room and gets under his blanket, he can let everything back in.

Jonghyun, too. 

 

“Taemin-ah.”

Jonghyun looks surprised to see him. He shouldn’t be. They made a date to have lunch again that day, and since Jonghyun stood him up yesterday, Taemin is going to make sure he keeps it today. So here he is.

Taemin’s Plan A was, _What do you want to eat?_ and if Jonghyun didn’t cooperate, his backup was, _We need to talk._ But what comes out of him instead is, “This is your lunch break.”

It sure doesn’t look like it. Taemin knows how production goes. He knows how hard it is to put yourself first when you’re not on your own schedule, and you’re the only one who cares more about getting everything exactly right than the time and money it would cost. He knows what it’s like, too, when everybody around you is just trying to do their jobs, streamline your process, manage your expectations, help you on the company’s terms. When Taemin was working on _Press It,_ he had no life outside the studio, either. He never saw Jonghyun unless Jonghyun could come to him. He slept four hours a night, but he slept. He ate in the control room, but he ate.

He didn’t buy the engineers sandwiches so they’d work with him on mixing through their break, then sit there in the same clothes he was wearing two days ago and starve himself.

Jonghyun has been watching his face, and now he says, so carefully, “Just give me five minutes to finish this.” When Taemin doesn’t move, his hand comes up to the small of Taemin’s back and he’s pushing him towards the door. “Wait outside for me, okay?”

Every last part of Taemin is dying to say no, but the words don’t come until Jonghyun puts him out in the hallway and leaves him there. Then they stick around no matter what he tries, deep breaths, clenching and unclenching his fingers, counting the cracks in the tiles at his feet. By the time Jonghyun comes for him, Taemin’s head is about to come off.

He grabs Jonghyun by the wrist and doesn’t let go until he’s dragged him to the alley out back. Usually people come here to smoke or cry or make out. Taemin just needs somewhere to yell.

Before he can say anything, Jonghyun takes him by the shoulders, starts up with, “What’s wrong, Taeminnie? If it’s something I did,” and Taemin knocks his hands away and gets some space and goes back to the breathing thing for a while. He really can’t handle him. He really, really can’t.

“You make no sense, hyung,” Taemin tells him, when he thinks he might explode if he doesn’t let _something_ out. Right away there are ten other things on the tip of his tongue. “You said I could get mad at you, and then you got mad at me,” he says, but that’s not it, so he tries again. “You always want me to talk, but if I don’t say what you want you ignore me, and you’re still ignoring me.” And then who cares about that, because, “You can take everything out on me. Get mad at me. Yell at me. But you don’t get to take it out on yourself.” And when Jonghyun still doesn’t stop him, the only thing Taemin has left is, “You have to eat, hyung. This is your lunch break.”

Breathe. Breathe, breathe.

“It’s yours, too,” Jonghyun says. Of all fucking things.

“You never listen to me,” Taemin snaps. “Not when it’s about you. It’s like you want me to be mean to you,” and he thought he’d gotten it all out, but the words are coming so fast now he can’t keep up. “Like you’re asking me to misunderstand you, and overreact to stuff, and. You want me to think only of myself. But I want to think of you, and I’m going to, so deal with it.” Taemin trips headlong over the look on Jonghyun’s face, knocks the breath out of his body, but. “If you don’t like it, go find somebody who doesn’t like you.”

That’s everything.

Or maybe not, because the next second Jonghyun is on him, holding him close, hands everywhere, raining kisses on his face, saying stuff like, “Forgive me, don’t be mad, please, baby,” and, “I need you,” and, “I don’t want anybody but you, I’ve been going crazy without you.”

Taemin doesn’t know how to tell him it’s only been two days. Before he gets the chance, Jonghyun pulls him into a kiss. Taemin’s back hits the wall, Jonghyun’s tongue in his mouth and his hands on his ass and his dick pressing into his hip, already hard for Taemin. Taemin’s getting there. In the meantime he gives back as good as he gets. Teases Jonghyun’s tongue with his own, arches into him, makes him moan. Jonghyun’s cologne is too strong and his hair is so greasy it slips through Taemin’s fingers, so Taemin pulls harder, buries his face in Jonghyun’s neck, breathes him in.

“Tell me you want me,” Jonghyun demands.

Taemin folds his arms around him, clenches his fingers into his shirt and hangs on.

“I want you,” Taemin says into his skin.

Jonghyun gets a hand in his hair and tugs his head up. His lips are right there, bitten red and shiny with spit, but Jonghyun won’t let Taemin kiss him, cups his cheeks and holds his eyes instead.

“You can have me, Taeminnie,” he says. “Whatever you want of me. I’m all yours.”

Taemin has to say something this time. He’s going to. He just doesn’t know what, or how he’s supposed to think of it right now, when it’s broad daylight, it’s real life, and Jonghyun could put him on his knees or fuck him into the wall, and Taemin would let him do it.

“Not here, hyung.” First thing in his head. But that’s not his answer, not the one he wants Jonghyun to hear anyway. “You can’t take it back later. Any of it. If you’re good, I’ll treat you well~”

Jonghyun doesn’t laugh, the way he was supposed to. Just smiles and smiles at Taemin, sweet and a little shy. He shares his last cigarette with Taemin, too, leaning against the wall and waiting for their boners to go down, so they can go back in there.

Eventually Jonghyun circles all the way back, says, “Ask me. About anyone, anytime. I don’t want to do anything to make you worry.”

And suddenly it’s so easy for Taemin to be honest with him. “I don’t want to watch you like that.”

“What if I want you to?” Jonghyun says, and Taemin’s not sure he’s joking. Maybe he’s not sure, either, because he searches Taemin’s face, like he’s looking for something to tell him if he should be. Taemin lets him look all he wants, takes a long drag and only turns away to blow smoke. And then, all of the sudden, mouth crooking, “You can ask me about you, too. There’s a lot I could say.”

Taemin’s sure there’s a lot he could, too, but, “I’m not so sure I want to hear it? You say enough already, you don’t need my help.”

“You’re so cute when you smile,” Jonghyun says, pinching Taemin’s cheek, and that’s how Taemin catches himself at it.

“Everything I do is cute, I don’t need you to tell me that~”

“You’re cuter when you don’t pretend you don’t know.”

Taemin laughs, lighter than air, and Jonghyun steals the cigarette back, takes a few puffs and grinds it under his shoe. Watches, waits, breathes. Taemin rests his chin on his hands and gives Jonghyun the kind of smile he saves up for photo shoots. Jonghyun makes a low amused sound, then tries some aegyo of his own, slaps his hands onto his cheeks and makes a kissy face.

“You’re cute too, hyung,” Taemin says, smiling for real. Jonghyun does another set, gives Taemin finger hearts, and then another, tilting his head and scrunching his face up like it hurts to think, and then another and another, until Taemin just has to kiss him. But that’s dangerous, so instead he says, “I like you.”

“I like you, too,” Jonghyun says promptly.

Taemin doesn’t get why his heart still flutters and his face still heats up and he still doesn’t know what to do with himself, hearing Jonghyun say that, when he’s heard Jonghyun say all kinds of stuff. He’s heard him come.

He can barely take this much, and he wants more. He doesn’t get that either. “I love you.”

“I love you more,” Jonghyun replies, turning Taemin’s face to his. When Taemin opens his mouth again, Jonghyun covers it with his own.

Five more minutes.


	4. Moon

By the time Taemin’s bladder drives him out of bed and into the bathroom, Jonghyun is freshly showered and dressed in last night’s clothes, brushing his teeth in front of the mirror. He doesn’t open his mouth until Taemin crowds in next to him at the sink, and then it’s only to ask, “Are you getting up?”

Taemin doesn’t want to be on the part of the morning where he can talk, so he grunts and shuffles back to bed, faceplants into the pillows and tries to kick the covers back up around his waist. Jonghyun follows him, and once he’s done laughing at Taemin he helps him out, tucking him in. Taemin feels his lips on the top of his head, hears him say, “Go back to sleep, hyung has to go,” and he forgets everything.

“This early?” he says.

When he squints over to the clock on the bedside table to see if he has a case, it tells him it’s five thirty. So kind of. The earliest Taemin’s ever gotten into the studio was seven, and that was after bribing all the engineers with ginseng tonic. Maybe Jonghyun made friends with the janitor.

“There’s some stuff I need to finish from yesterday. I’m getting behind.”

“'Moon?’”

Jonghyun hesitates, then nods, sitting down on the edge of the bed. Combs his fingers through Taemin’s hair, gets this look on his face like he wants to talk. Taemin scoots over and holds the blankets up, and he takes the hint, crawls in next to him. Strokes his hand down Taemin’s side and stares into his eyes and doesn’t say anything.

“What’s the problem?” Taemin says.

“I have to get the vocals right.”

Well, duh. Taemin manages to keep the smile off his face, but it’s still in his voice when he says, “Uh huh,” and he deserves it when Jonghyun pinches him.

“There are a lot of different parts, Taeminnie. If I could do it all in one take it’d be easier.”

For Taemin, there’s music, and then there’s singing. Backing track, and vocals. Jonghyun doesn’t see it like that, and maybe that’s because he can do both. His voice is at the center of his compositions. It’s also everywhere, layers and layers of different Jonghyuns, pushing and pulling, in conversation with each other. And then there’s the person outside the music, the one Taemin’s talking to right now, the one who has to walk the line between too little and too much, and hates every little part of himself until he’s made it to the other side.

“I have to get in character, too,” Jonghyun goes on, which is a whole other thing, on top of all that. Something in Taemin’s face makes him wrinkle his brow, narrow his eyes. “What?”

“Just…” Taemin’s not sure what to say, so he plays with Jonghyun’s hair while he figures it out. And when that doesn’t help, he plays with Jonghyun instead, pressing his finger into the corner of his mouth, smoothing his finger over his eyebrow. “You can do so much with your voice. Like, I try some things with mine. Sweet for ballads, powerful for dance, stuff like that. I don’t know if anyone can hear the difference besides me, though.”

“Show me your sweet voice.”

The smirk on Jonghyun’s face goes straight to Taemin’s dick, makes him a little crazy. He drags a deep, rasping grunt out of his chest, and once he hears himself he’s just trying not to lose it. Jonghyun insists, “Show me,” low and amused, and this time he means it. Taemin holds out as long as he can, fights him with his whole body, but that’s all useless as soon as Jonghyun starts tickling him. The only thing left to do then is kiss him, while his lungs are still working, while he still has strength in his arms. Jonghyun turns it against him, though, pulls him close and sucks on Taemin’s tongue and passes his hand down the curve of Taemin’s spine.

Too much.

Taemin has to go back to talking. That’s safer.

…What were they talking about?

“Your character,” Taemin says. “Is it the same one for the whole album?”

Jonghyun doesn’t have to think about it. “Yeah.”

Taemin has to, though. Or at least he should. Instead he finds himself asking, “Then is every song about the same girl, too?”

“Most of them aren’t about anyone, Taeminnie,” Jonghyun tells him, a little too quickly. “No, I take that back, none of them are. ‘Moon’ is based on a dream. ‘Red’ is from traffic lights. ‘Cocktail’ is from drinking. ‘Dress Up,’ deciding what to wear.” Jonghyun stops short, pinches him again, and this time it’s totally unfair. Taemin hid his face in the pillow, there’s no way Jonghyun could know he’s this close to laughing at him. “What’s so funny?”

“You told me this was supposed to be a sex album, you made such a big deal about it. At work, too. And now you’re telling me it’s about all this other stuff. You’re so weird.”

Jonghyun pushes at his shoulder, turning him over, and Taemin takes the pillow with him. He’s just going to stay right here for a while. Just until his face straightens out. Just until he’s ready to deal with Jonghyun’s feelings, in case he hurt them for real.

“Look who’s talking,” Jonghyun says. Then, like Taemin’s making him say it, “It’s not like I want it both ways or something. I wrote everything as a fantasy.” And then, when Taemin takes a peek and Jonghyun catches his eyes in a second, traps him with his gaze, “I mean, sure, maybe he likes what I like, maybe he shares my feelings about certain things, but that’s all in my head. None of it comes from my sex life. That’s private.” Jonghyun smiles at him, shy and secret. “That’s your business.”

Taemin’s face doesn’t heat up. His stomach doesn’t tighten. He doesn’t feel naked for the first time all morning. He doesn’t want to pull Jonghyun on top of him, mess up his clothes until he finds skin, or anything.

He doesn’t do anything about it. Just looks at Jonghyun, and thinks of him, and wants to say, _I don’t get how he’s not you._ But maybe that’s Taemin’s problem, not Jonghyun’s. Maybe.

“Are you sure it’s not all stuff you can’t talk about?” he says, and as soon as it’s out of his mouth he hates how it sounds, but he can’t go back. Jonghyun is already listening to him. “There’s a lot you can’t say out loud.”

A lot of the things Taemin’s never been allowed to have are things he would have kept inside anyway. As long as he knows his own thoughts, his own opinions, his own feelings, it’s enough. But Jonghyun isn’t the same as him. He’s spent his whole adult life being told to shut up. And now Taemin is a part of that, too. Just another secret Jonghyun has to keep.

Jonghyun gives him a look that feels like a touch. Twists Taemin’s words around and around, tighter and tighter, says, “The only things I can’t talk about are the things you can’t talk about,” and reaches up to press his thumb to Taemin’s lips.

Taemin takes it between his teeth, before his brain kicks in again, and he takes Jonghyun’s hand in his instead, places it in between them.

“I didn’t mean it like that,” he tells Jonghyun, and tries again. “Like…it’s a song, so no one will hear. It doesn’t matter if she takes him seriously, she can’t say anything back. He can embarrass himself all he wants.”

“It’s not embarrassing, Taeminnie, it’s called poetry,” Jonghyun snaps, snatching his hand away and rolling over so all Taemin has is his back.

Taemin wants to tell him there’s a reason nobody talks like that in real life, but that’s a terrible idea. The next thing he comes up with is, “But you wrote it,” and maybe that’s worse, maybe he shouldn’t have said that out loud, because when Jonghyun flops over again it’s to glare at him.

“What are you trying to ask? Are you trying to get me to say it’s all about you?”

“Are you saying it’s not?”

It’s a bad joke. Jonghyun’s expression slips, and for a second he’s got Taemin terrified of what he’s going to say next, but instead he breaks into a smile like he can’t help himself, and then they’re both laughing. Somewhere in the middle of that Jonghyun kisses him, so Taemin kisses him back, tastes his smile, feels his laughter under his hands.

“Do you want me to say cheesy things to you, or something?” Jonghyun asks him when they come up for air. Taemin’s pretty sure Jonghyun hasn’t missed the part where he already does. More than sure, when he nudges Taemin’s nose with his. “Mm?” Trips his fingers along Taemin’s jaw and draws him in to meet his lips. “Baby?”

“As long as you don’t expect me to say them back,” is all Taemin is going to say to that. He hopes Jonghyun has missed the part where it does things to him. And anyway. “I’m trying to figure out how much of it is you.” Jonghyun isn’t too interested in what Taemin has to say anymore, he’s moved on to making Taemin’s body talk, hands everywhere, but this is important. He has to listen, Taemin’s taken his face in his hands and kept his eyes up here and said this kind of stuff where Jonghyun could see, all so that he would listen. “I hear your voice, and no matter what you do to it, all I hear is you. I can’t separate it out.” And, “You can talk to me. You can say anything.”

Jonghyun stills. Taemin meets his eyes for as long as he can, and then a little longer, and a little longer.

“Taemin-ah,” Jonghyun says finally, lips curving around his name. “I want to hear your sweet voice.”

That again.

“I showed you before,” Taemin huffs.

Playing hard to get should be so easy, when it’s with Jonghyun. All he has to do is keep his smile inside, and pretend not think about it at all, and not react when Jonghyun whines, “Taemin-ah~” and presses in closer, and steals a kiss.

It’s that last part that always ruins it.

By the time Taemin has to breathe again, he can’t think. He’s got Jonghyun on top of him, between his legs, moving against him. All he wants is more more more more. Jonghyun pants above him, wet open mouth just out of reach, eyes black, hair wild, and somehow Taemin did that to him, and he’ll do more if Jonghyun will _let_ him. Pulling his hair doesn’t work, just gets these noises out of him, low and bit-off, so Taemin sticks his hands up his T-shirt and sets his nails in Jonghyun’s back and hooks his fingers around Jonghyun’s shoulders, and then finally he has his mouth again.

They kiss and kiss and kiss, messy and desperate, until Taemin’s toes curl and he wants to fuck so badly he can taste it. Jonghyun shifts onto one elbow, slips his hand down to grip the back of his thigh and press Taemin’s leg up, up around his waist, fingers digging into his flesh, pants rasping against the soft skin there. And then he moves again. And again. Presses full-bodied into Taemin, traps Taemin’s dick against his stomach, sends this bright electric feeling ripping through him. Slides his hand down, down, and touches him there, where Taemin’s still wet with his come, open, used, aching. Wanting.

It all burns up. Everything inside Taemin. Everything.

When he can open his eyes he makes himself look at the clock instead of Jonghyun. Six fifteen.

And when he can talk, he makes himself say, “I thought you had to go.”

“I do,” Jonghyun says, and doesn’t move.

It should be so easy to wriggle out from underneath him, roll him onto his back, go jerk off in the shower and listen for the door clicking shut. Taemin’s done it a million times before, and he always thinks he can’t, just like now.

He gets as far as the other side of the bed before Jonghyun says it.

“You keep asking about me, but you won’t say anything for yourself.”

Something in his voice makes Taemin look, and then Taemin sees his face and his body quits listening to him.

“I have this thing,” Jonghyun says quietly. “We go to a hotel, we fuck, we spend the night together. And then morning comes and one of us always has to go.” His eyes are so dark, staring into Taemin’s, and there’s no part of Taemin that wants to stop him, however far Jonghyun takes this. “When it’s you, I always want to hold you back, drag you back to bed, make you stay with me, but I don’t want you to hate me. So I let you go and think of what I’ll do to you next time. What you’ll do to me.” His mouth curls, and Taemin goes hot at all the things that could come out of his mouth next, but all Jonghyun says is, “Sometimes the sheets still smell of you.”

Taemin wants to crawl over there and hold Jonghyun. He wants to suck his dick and swallow his come and make him forget his own name. He wants to kiss him.

Jonghyun needs words.

_It’s not about hating you, it’s about hating myself. I don’t want to make things any harder on you than they already are. I love you._

Finally he says, “That’s just our lives, hyung,” and Jonghyun takes it, and ignores him.

Says, “Today it’s me. You don’t want me to go.” Taemin has no way to hide it from him, naked and hard. He can hate himself for it all he wants, and he does, but Jonghyun’s eyes are on him, and his dick is hard for him, and he’s telling Taemin, “I want you to say it. I want you to hold on to me, take what you want, make me want it. Use me. I’ll hate you if you don’t.”

Taemin breaks. Jonghyun lets him come halfway on his own before he grabs him by the arms and yanks him in. Taemin lies across his chest, fists his hands in the sheets, buries his face in his neck. Then Jonghyun take Taemin’s legs out from under him too, hands climbing up Taemin’s back to his ass, squeezing, pulling his cheeks apart.

“You were so greedy last night. My fingers, my tongue, my cock.” Jonghyun rubs his thumb over his hole, takes it away when Taemin pushes into his touch. “Do you want it again? You want me to fuck you?”

Taemin bites his shoulder through his shirt.

Jonghyun gives it to him. One finger, then two. Three. Presses deeper, twists his fingers, finds that spot over and over. He’s got Taemin burning at both ends, fucking back onto his hand, forward into his hip, and he kisses him through it, teases Taemin’s mouth open, flirts with his tongue, eats every sound he drags out of Taemin. Too much, not enough, until the only thing Taemin needs is more of him. He jerks Jonghyun’s fly open, gets his dick out, takes it in his hand and wants to take it into his mouth. Wants to sit on it.

“Please, Taeminnie.”

Jonghyun fills him, slowly, slowly. Taemin takes him in. Jonghyun’s fingers bite into his hips, his chest rises and falls under Taemin’s palms, his face twists. Taemin tries to wait for him, tries to breathe, but he has to move, push into the burn, push into this feeling, take Jonghyun deeper somehow. Ruin himself for everything else.

Jonghyun is right there with him. Fucking up into him, meeting his hips, taking his weight, making him see white, telling him things like, “Fuck, you’re so tight,” and, “Let me hear you, baby, please,” and, “Taeminnie.” And Taemin takes him, clenches around his dick and fucks himself on it and holds his eyes until his muscles give out and he collapses on top of him and all that’s left on Jonghyun’s lips is that last thing. His name.

Jonghyun bites his ear, pants and moans into it, catches Taemin’s hair in his mouth. Plants his feet into the mattress, thighs pressed to Taemin’s ass, thrusts into him, faster, harder. Taemin takes it all, gives back as much as he can, moves with him, traps his fingers inside Jonghyun’s collar trying to find skin, kisses him everywhere, lets himself cry out every time Jonghyun hits that white hot place inside him.

Jonghyun slides his fingers over Taemin’s skin, touches him where he’s stretched open on Jonghyun’s dick. Shudders underneath him, gasps, fucks and fucks and fucks into him, desperate and hot and breathless. And then that’s it. He shouts, comes, fills Taemin up, nothing left inside him that’s not Jonghyun. Taemin works his hand down in between them, but Jonghyun gets there first, takes him in his hand, takes him to the moon.

Taemin comes.


	5. Aurora

Jonghyun is in a foul mood and he doesn’t care who knows it, slouched in his seat next to Taemin, jogging his foot and sucking on the inside of his cheek and staring out at the tarmac. There’s nothing to see out there except airplanes going nowhere, but maybe that beats looking at Taemin or the others. They can look back.

Jonghyun’s at the end of his day and they’re all at the beginning of theirs. The only difference is a couple hours’ sleep, and Taemin is only half awake, but Minho is a morning person and he doesn’t believe in things like mercy.

“I bought _Save the Green Planet!_ on DVD, so we can watch it together at the hotel,” Minho tells them all.

…Okay?

Taemin doesn’t catch on until Kibum snaps, “Why would you do that? It’ll spoil the whole thing,” and then he remembers. Kibum’s musical. Just got the part. Taemin didn’t text him to congratulate him. He was going to do it in person. Here. Before he can translate thought into action, Kibum looks right at him, says, “Anyway, I’m cuter than Shin Hagyun. Just come and watch my play. If you don’t want to die, or anything~”

“It won’t spoil anything. I’ve already seen it like five times.”

Jinki snorts into Taemin’s shoulder, emerges from his halfway state to say, “Aigoo, you say it like that’s something to be proud of.”

“You’ve seen it at least twice, hyung, you just don’t remember,” Minho says, because he can’t not talk back. “I don’t know what else to do with you when you’re drunk and you won’t go to bed.”

Minho's shown it to Taemin as well, along with Jonghyun. He’s not a film buff, but he likes movies, and Minho knows all the good ones. It’s so easy to have him pick, then sit back and ask questions and let him do all the thinking. The only thing Taemin remembers about this one is the part with the bees, because Jonghyun hid his face in Taemin’s shoulder and wouldn’t look until it was over.

He still has one shoulder free right now. Jonghyun could try using it. Sleep or something.

“What about you, Taemin-ah?” He starts at the sound of his name, looks up and meets Minho’s eyes. “Have they set the date for your debut?”

It’s Taemin’s fourth one. Japan has always been good to Shinee’s Taemin, and now he’s going to see how they like Taemin on his own. So far he’s done ‘Sayonara Hitori’ and then “Press Your Number” in Japanese, but SM hasn’t put the rush on his EP, not the way it did with _Ace_ and _Press It._ He doesn’t even know what the rest of it is going to look like yet, just that he’s going to do what they say this time around. Maybe he’ll build up karma for his next comeback in Korea. 

“I don’t know, maybe this summer? When we get back SM wants me to record a few more tracks, and then we’ll see.”

As he’s speaking Minho gets this look on his face like he’s listening really hard, but as soon as he’s finished he breaks into a grin. “Show us what you’ve been working on. Jonghyun hyung said the choreography’s crazy.” And when Taemin has nothing to say to that, because they’re surrounded by luggage and a ton of other people who haven’t recognized them yet, “He said it was beautiful. Come on, Taeminnie. There has to be a part you can do here.” 

Taemin is twenty-four. He doesn’t have to do whatever they say now, it no longer even counts as rebellion if he doesn’t. He’s just going to ignore Kibum’s loud, “Get it over with, Taeminnie,” Jinki poking his finger into his side, Minho’s smiles.

“Show us, Taemin-ah,” Jonghyun says.

Taemin does.

He feels so stupid, lying on the ground with their suitcases kicked out of the way, fluorescent lights flickering against his eyelids, twirling to his feet, counting the beats in his head. Probably looks really stupid, too, curling in on himself and then throwing his arms out, trying to bring feeling into it without any music to help. But he keeps moving, and Jonghyun’s eyes follow him, and then he reaches the breakdown and everything disappears.

Until his foot catches on the strap of Kibum’s backpack. Then he’s just an idiot again.

Minho catches his fall, takes him by the arms and gets him to his seat. Jonghyun’s on his feet, but when Taemin throws himself down, he sits, too, pressed against Taemin’s side, tense and silent. Taemin sneaks a hand onto his thigh, draws his fingertip across it, and it’s like the breath hits Jonghyun’s body again. He relaxes into Taemin.

“Come get coffee with me?” Jinki says a while later, when he’s reached the next stage of waking, the part where he realizes just how fucking tired he is.

Taemin wants caffeine, but he wants Jonghyun more. He glances at him, finds Jonghyun staring into his face, open and intent.

Kibum goes with Jinki instead, only promises to get Taemin the blackest coffee on the menu after he’s pulled a face, just in case Taemin didn’t know how awful his taste is. Minho comes along as far as the bathroom, and for the first time today, first time in a week, it’s just the two of them.

“You always say I’m beautiful,” Taemin accuses him. He has so much he wants to say and that’s the one thing he actually can. “I didn’t know you said it behind my back, too.”

Jonghyun stretches his arm along the back of Taemin’s seat, plays with the hair at the nape of his neck. His mouth crooks into the kind of smile that softens his face, lights up his eyes, makes Taemin’s heart hurt.

“Stop being so pretty, and I’ll stop saying it.”

 

A day later, another leg of Shinee World, another rehearsal, another eternity in the waiting room while the technical staff and coordi noonas get organized. Another demo off Jonghyun’s album stuck in Taemin’s head.

“Aurora” this time.

It’s a song Taemin knows from as long as half a year ago. Every couple of weeks, wherever they had three minutes to themselves, he’d corner Taemin and put his headphones in for him, and then press play and watch each second hit his face. Taemin could never tell the difference from the last time he’d heard it, but Jonghyun always held it against him if he said the same thing twice in a row. He asked Taemin over and over if it was too much. If it was too fast. If his voice was working against the song.

Taemin never told him what he wanted to hear. He never wanted to, either.

“It’s the grown-up version of ‘Neon,’” Jonghyun says, even though no one asked him. Kibum and Jinki put their headphones in after the fifth replay just so they wouldn’t have to listen to him anymore.

Minho’s game, though. “Then is _She Is_ the grown-up version of _Base?”_

“It’s an extension of _Base,_ it’s just this one song that’s a do-over.”

“I don’t know, I think I like ‘Neon’ better.”

Minho’s only half serious, as if he’s not just saying that so Jonghyun will make the face he’s making. Only half joking, too, as if he’s put any thought into it at all.

Taemin has, though. “Me, too.”

Jonghyun rounds on him. “What, are you an extension of Minho?”

“Do you think ‘Aurora’ sounds more sophisticated or something?” Minho says, but Jonghyun doesn’t take his eyes off Taemin’s face, so he doesn’t see Minho’s smile, maybe doesn’t hear the laughter in his voice either. When Jonghyun doesn’t retort the way he’s supposed to and the silence inflates weirdly, Minho tries for real. “Is it the same story?”

It’s not about the lyrics. It’s about the genre. Taemin could tell him that much, but Jonghyun gets there first. Says, “‘Neon’ was my first attempt at neo-soul. I decided to put it in last time so it counts, I can’t do anything about it now.” Taemin wants to cut him off right there, but he can’t figure out what to say, and in the meantime Jonghyun tells Minho, “This time it’s the real thing.”

It was last time, too, though. Maybe “Neon” wasn’t perfect, maybe Jonghyun’s best wasn’t as good a year ago as it is now, but that doesn’t mean it was a bad song. It doesn’t mean Jonghyun fucked up, it doesn’t give him the right to shit on it.

“You liked ‘Neon,’” Taemin says. His voice twists up in his throat and comes out strange. “It was everybody else that didn’t.”

Everybody else, as in the engineers that worked on _Base._ SM’s creative team. All the same people Jonghyun told Taemin he didn’t want to listen to now, people who like music, know music, but aren’t interested in his. Not Taemin. Before "Aurora," there was "Neon." Jonghyun would come to him every once in a while, make him listen to the latest version, and ask him if he liked it. Taemin always said yes, and Jonghyun’s face always lit up, and then he’d talk Taemin’s ear off about all the little details that went into it.

“So what, everybody else has to hate ‘Aurora’ for you to like it?” Jonghyun says, and he sounds even worse, and that’s not what Taemin meant, that’s not what he was saying.

“I really liked Jonghyun back then, too,” is what comes out of Taemin next. Minho backs him up in a second, says, “Your hair was really cool, hyung,” and Taemin wishes he hadn’t, because Jonghyun completely fucking hates it, his face says as much, and now Taemin doesn’t know how to take it back.

“You don’t like me now?”

This is going so wrong. For the most part Taemin gets by without understanding Jonghyun, but then there are times like this, where loving him can’t make up the difference. It just makes things worse, because Jonghyun can’t see in himself what Taemin can. Taemin has no way to show him, and Jonghyun doesn’t even want to look.

There’s so much Taemin could say if Minho weren’t right here, so much he should still be able to say in front of him. But he’s not Jonghyun, he’s never been able to find the right words, and now all he can think of is the obvious stuff, things Jonghyun himself already knows, such as, “You’re the same person, hyung.” 

_I just like you better than you like yourself._

“That’s not what I asked you,” Jonghyun begins, but Minho isn’t having the same conversation as the two of them, and he interrupts, asks, “What is your concept going to be this time? Cute?”

It’s the pink hair. Taemin can see it, but he’s pretty sure Jonghyun won’t want to, not as long as it’s Minho, peering down at him to say it.

“Sexy,” Taemin says quickly, but that’s not right, because Minho laughs and the look Jonghyun throws Taemin stops his heart, and then—

“You guys can stop making my life into a fucking joke any time now.”

Minho gives Jonghyun five minutes and then goes after him. Taemin stays behind and hates himself so much it makes him sick.

 

“I’m sorry, hyung.”

Taemin thought of a million different ways this could go, but as soon as Jonghyun let him in to his hotel room, pale and tired and trying to smile, he forgot everything but that first part. And now Jonghyun gives him a long look, before he takes pity on him, presses a hand between Taemin’s shoulder blades and sits him down on the bed. Takes a seat right next to him, leaves the TV on, cheats on Taemin with cute anime girls while he waits for Taemin to get unstuck. And finally, when it becomes obvious Taemin can’t even do that much on his own.

“For what?” Jonghyun’s shoulder bumps into his. “I won’t know unless you tell me, Taemin-ah.”

“I like ‘Aurora,’” Taemin says stupidly.

Jonghyun has been avoiding his eyes all day, and that’s all it takes, he can’t meet them now. Instead he flops onto his back and throws his forearm over his eyes. Taemin looks his fill, heart in his throat, then lays himself carefully along Jonghyun’s side, crosses his ankle over Jonghyun’s and tries not to push.

“It’s okay if you don’t,” Jonghyun tells the ceiling. “You don’t have to like everything all the time. What do you think I am, you think I can’t take that much?”

“You think I don’t know how much it means to you?” Taemin says with difficulty. When he puts his hand on Jonghyun’s elbow, Jonghyun lets him take his arm away. His eyes aren’t red, his cheeks aren’t shining, but there’s something in his face that touches Taemin deep inside. “'Neon’ meant a lot to you too, hyung. Hating it is like hating yourself.”

Before he can rethink, he reaches up and pinches Jonghyun’s cheek. Jonghyun’s expression warps and his features give, just a little, and suddenly Taemin’s the one that can’t look. It’s worse when Jonghyun’s hand comes down on his hair, petting him clumsily.

“You get like that too, you know. Whatever it is, you always think you can do better, and you think people are talking down to you when they tell you it’s okay.”

This isn’t about him, but before Taemin can stop himself he’s saying, “Sometimes they are.”

Jonghyun’s the youngest in his family, but in Shinee he’s the second oldest. He doesn’t know what it’s like, being babied and spoiled at work, how hard it is for Taemin to get perspective on his career, how much harder it is to own any of it, when everyone around him always knows better.

Instead, Jonghyun puts everything on himself. “And sometimes I’m shit.”

Taemin doesn’t get to him before he turns over onto his side, curls in on himself. All he can do is lay his hand on his shoulder, say, “Hyung,” and put everything he can into that one word while he figures out what comes next. Jonghyun doesn’t wait for him.

“Getting you to talk to me is like torture, but you never shut up when you should, you’re impossible,” he says. He’s trying so hard to sound normal, but Taemin knows him.

He scoots up behind Jonghyun, noses into his hair, drapes an arm around his middle and feels for his hand, holds his fingers in his fist when Jonghyun stiffens, goes still. Breathes with him.

“Hyung, what’s wrong?” he says, as gently as he can. Even if Taemin knew he’d still have to ask. Jonghyun always needs someone to ask first.

“I don’t know.” Deep shuddering breath. “Life.” Shaky exhale, face pushing into the blanket. Taemin brushes his hair back, waits. And then, tight-voiced and miserable, “Me.”

There’s nothing Taemin can say that Jonghyun would hear. He has no words anyway. They’re trapped in his chest, closing off his throat, forcing the air out of his lungs, squeezing in on his heart, breaking his ribs. The only thing he knows for sure is he’s terrified. Taemin lies there and hopes to God his silence doesn’t feel like this for Jonghyun, that his body says some of the right things, and holds him through it.

And then somehow it passes. Jonghyun rolls over in Taemin’s arms and faces him. Tells him, “I’m down ten pounds.”

“You’re always telling me how skinny I am,” Taemin says, false start. Before Jonghyun can take that in, he has to fix it. “I’m taller than you and I weigh less, and I’m okay. I’m healthy.”

Jonghyun just looks at him. Maybe his mouth curls, just a little, but his heart isn’t in it.

“That’s you.” Taemin can’t really fight him on that, so he rubs a fingertip over Jonghyun’s eyelids instead, wipes away the last of his tears before they dry. Jonghyun stares at him with one eye, then the other, makes Taemin smile and doesn’t smile back. “Don’t tell me you haven’t noticed.” Before Taemin can open his mouth, he presses his fingers to Taemin’s lips, warns him, “Don’t. It’d be worse than if you have, Taeminnie.”

They haven’t fucked in over a week, and the last few times were rushed and stolen. He hasn’t seen Jonghyun naked in forever, he hasn’t had anything _to_ notice, except the hollows of his cheeks, the bones of his wrists, the way his clothes don’t fit, and none of that changes how Taemin sees him. None of it ever could. _Nothing_ could. Taemin just doesn’t know how to tell him that and make him believe it. Jonghyun can make Taemin feel beautiful with just a word, just a look, just a touch, even when Taemin never wants to look at himself again, and now here he is, with Jonghyun waiting for him to say something, and he’s no closer to saying the right thing than he was this afternoon. He might fuck up again. He might let Jonghyun down again.

He has to say something.

“I’ve liked you since I was fourteen.”

It just comes out of him, and then he kind of dies inside, waiting for Jonghyun to process that. Ten years too late, after all the dirty things they’ve said and done to each other, it still feels like a confession, and everything comes rushing back. The way his stomach used to squirm when Jonghyun looked at him the way he’s looking right now, the way his skin burned under Jonghyun’s hands, like it’s burning now, the way his heart would race after he said something this stupid, and Jonghyun opened his mouth to reply.

“I’m your first love,” Jonghyun says. It’s not a question.

“I didn’t say that,” stumbling over the words, not sure if it counts as a lie or not. He’s being so dumb, he’s gone wrong again. “That’s not what I meant.”

“I know I was your first everything else.” Jonghyun runs his fingertip down Taemin’s nose. Their eyes meet, and then Jonghyun says, so gently, “What did you mean, Taeminnie? Tell me.”

Taemin thinks about it, and he thinks about Jonghyun.

“Just…I’ve seen everything. I know everything about you. I like you.”

Jonghyun thinks about that, and he probably thinks about Taemin too.

He smiles.


	6. Dress Up

“What are you looking at?”

“I’m not allowed to look at you?”

Jonghyun isn’t checking him out, he’s staring at him. Taemin can feel the difference. Pointing that out to Jonghyun would be too easy, though, so he throws his arm over the back of his chair, spreads his legs wide, gazes up at Jonghyun through his eyelashes and purses his lips. Stares him down until he breaks.

Jonghyun doesn’t laugh at him like he’s supposed to, though. Instead he bursts out, “Do you look in the mirror before you go out?”

Taemin doesn’t know what that’s supposed to mean, so it’s easy to play dumb. “If I go to the bathroom one last time, I guess so?”

Jonghyun doesn’t find that amusing, either. His mouth thins in annoyance, and he gets as far as, “Taemin-ah,” before he has to stop himself. Taemin gives him five seconds, ten seconds, a minute, and then he can’t take it anymore.

 _“What,_ hyung?”

“You’re lucky you’re pretty,” Jonghyun says finally, and leaves it there.

Oh.

Taemin can’t not understand, and all at once he’s off Jonghyun and back in his body, trapped. The best he can do now is take a napkin to the fresh stain he finds on his sweatshirt, and lean over the table to take his next sip of broth.

“It’s three in the morning, I just put on whatever,” Taemin says when he can speak. “Is it that bad?”

“Yeah.”

Taemin shouldn’t have asked.

Right away he wants to defend himself, but what does he know. He’s been a fashion victim since birth, and none of the others have ever let him forget it. Usually he doesn’t mind, gives back as good as he gets, but this isn’t usually. This is Jonghyun. Taemin had just been sitting here dreaming up dirty things to try on him when he got him back to the car, and now he’s sitting here wishing Jonghyun would take his eyes off him.

Instead they end up in a staring contest, one where nobody wins anything. Taemin won’t lose, though, he can’t.

Enough time passes that he starts to forget himself again, really look, and then it takes no time at all for Jonghyun to turn him upside down. It’s three in the morning. Taemin got up to come here, but Jonghyun’s fresh from Blue Night and still in yesterday’s clothes. Taemin showed up in sweatpants, and Jonghyun probably went through his whole day in a nice shirt, skinny jeans, gel in his hair, just to eat army base stew with Taemin at the end of it. He hasn’t even taken his contacts out. Taemin didn’t bother to put his in, and all he had to do was roll out of bed and get in Jonghyun’s car.

“Am I embarrassing you?” Taemin says, and two seconds later he’s taking it back, “Forget it, don’t answer that.”

He’s embarrassed enough for the both of them already.

Jonghyun gives him another long look, and this time Taemin lets him do it all on his own. Just keeps his eyes on his food and concentrates on not burning his tongue.

“You make yourself pretty for everyone else,” Jonghyun says. Taemin has ten things he could say right there, because that’s not him. That’s the coordi noonas, that’s his job, and he could live without that part of it, and not because of the time he spends in hair and makeup and wardrobe at work, because of the times on his own where he feels ugly without all that. Like right now for example. But then the next thing is, “You think I’m low maintenance. You think I’m lucky to have you,” and if that counts as a joke Taemin doesn’t get it.

Before he can stop himself he retorts, “If I tried it’d be worse,” and once it’s out there, he’s just trying to figure out who he’s mad at, himself or Jonghyun. Why he can’t just shut up and let it go, why he can’t taste anything, not even the spam.

“So you admit it, you don’t try at all.”

There’s nothing to admit. Taemin’s never even thought about any of this until now.

Maybe that’s the worst thing.

He tries saying, “You always tell me I’m cute no matter what. I guess that’s just talk~” and immediately wishes he could rewind, bite his tongue instead. Next he tries pouting, because that always drives Jonghyun crazy, but the muscles in his face fight him the whole way. It feels hateful, and he doesn’t think Jonghyun wants to see it either. So he stops trying, eats faster, waits this stupid feeling out. When Jonghyun sighs, reaches across the table and wipes at his mouth, Taemin lets him do it, because he’d feel even stupider if he slapped his hand away.

Jonghyun’s fingers lift Taemin’s chin up, and then he catches Taemin’s eye, and Taemin doesn’t get why that makes everything harder instead of easier, because Jonghyun looks the same as he always does. This time he’s not annoyed at Taemin or frustrated with him or picking on him when he says, so quietly, “Make sure I don’t look at anyone else, Taeminnie.”

“I can’t make you do anything,” Taemin tells him.

All that does is make Jonghyun smile. “Are you talking back? You won’t look at me, either. I was too mean? You want revenge?”

“It’s not like that,” Taemin blurts out.

And that’s that, Jonghyun’s smile becomes a smirk and Taemin’s face heats up all on its own, and the stew bubbles and spits and boils down between them, Taemin just said it to say it. But that’s not it. Somewhere in the middle of all that Taemin’s brain catches up, and the longer he takes with Jonghyun now the more Jonghyun’s words linger, weigh Taemin down, tighten him up. ‘Make sure I don’t look at anyone else.’

“If things change for you,” Taemin begins, and that’s as far as he gets before what he’s saying reaches Jonghyun’s face. Taemin’s not sure he wants to see what this does to it, but, “Just tell me, okay? I won’t understand otherwise.”

“Do you look at anyone but me?”

Jonghyun says it so quickly, and then Taemin makes him wait, just trying to keep up.

“Like who?”

Last thing he should have said, first thing he thought of. Jonghyun doesn’t give Taemin time to fix it. “I’m asking you.”

Taemin has so many words he doesn’t have any, crowding up his throat, on the tip of his tongue, jumbled in his head. He keeps his mouth shut, makes himself breathe, makes himself meet Jonghyun’s eyes, lets him see everything when all he wants to do is hide until this goes away and his face feels like his own again. None of that helps, so he finds Jonghyun’s hand on the table, takes his sleeve between his fingers, holds on.

“You know I don’t,” he gets out.

“Good,” Jonghyun says. Then, kind of strangled, “I’m not like you, if you told me something else I didn’t know what I was going to do. You make me so crazy.”

“So don’t ask.” Taemin finds the biggest piece of sausage left in the pot and plops it into Jonghyun’s bowl. Then some pork belly. Jonghyun’s been letting Taemin have all the meat, he probably thinks Taemin hasn’t noticed, probably doesn’t realize Taemin’s just feeling bad about it now. “You don’t need to.”

Jonghyun eats.

Taemin does, too. That’s all for a while. The ahjumma tops off their water and checks on the two or three other people crazy or drunk enough to eat at this hour, then takes the television back from her husband again. They leave the Joseon dynasty behind, swap swords and speeches for the sounds of makjang, glasses breaking, women screaming, violins shrieking. Taemin wishes one of them liked the news.

“Taemin-ah.”

Jonghyun gives Taemin two seconds to answer before he decides he’s being ignored again, and pushes his foot against Taemin’s under the table. Taemin doesn’t help him out. He doesn’t feel like it.

“Taemin-ah~”

Jonghyun sinks down in his chair, stretches both legs out and traps Taemin’s foot between his own. Taemin doesn’t try to kick him, and he’s not smiling when he says, “Stop it.”

Jonghyun tries feeding him next. 

“I’ll just get fat,” Taemin huffs. This time it’s too hard to keep a straight face, and as soon Jonghyun drops his chopsticks to pinch Taemin’s cheeks instead, Taemin gives in. Jonghyun rewards him with a smile of his own, eyes crinkling up.

“What did you call me out for?” he says when he can talk without laughing.

“Do I need a reason to take you out? You’re the one who’s always begging hyung to buy you food,” Jonghyun retorts, but this time he’s only playing with Taemin. Taemin thinks about letting him get away with it, gets a little stuck on the curve of Jonghyun’s mouth, and in the end Jonghyun moves on without him. “I have something for you.”

He doesn’t make Taemin guess, just pulls his phone out of his pocket and uncoils his earbuds.

“Is it something I haven’t heard before?”

Jonghyun clicks his tongue at Taemin’s tone, shoots him a look, tells him, “Just listen,” and reaches for him. Taemin leans in and lets him put them in, hands warm and gentle framing Taemin’s face, and wishes Jonghyun could kiss him instead of pressing play.

“Dress Up.” Taemin knows this one.

Taemin works on forgetting Jonghyun’s lips, and listens to the Jonghyun in his ears. He gets through the first verse like that. Then the beat drops, and he feels it with his whole body, and he doesn’t care where he is, what he looks like, that Jonghyun can see everything, until the last note fades. As the world crowds in on him again his blood sings, and everything inside him is still telling him to _move._ Too late, he drops his arms, rests his elbows on the table, hooks his ankles around the legs of his chair. Jonghyun’s eyes aren’t the only ones on him, but everybody else looks away before his ears can start to go hot.

“It’s my first time with EDM,” Jonghyun reminds him, and then, before Taemin can say anything, like he’s trying to stay ahead of him, “The engineers think this is the final mix, but it doesn’t have to be,” and then, in between sucking on the inside of his cheek and shooting glances at Taemin, “LDN Noise reworked some of it.”

They go back as far as last year with Shinee, “View” and “Married to the Music.” The first two singles he and Jonghyun and the other three chose for themselves, two of the songs of Taemin’s life. They did a track on _Press It_ too. Taemin liked it.

He likes this better. It’s Jonghyun’s.

He doesn’t realize he should be saying some of that out loud until Jonghyun can’t take it anymore, demands, “What do you think?”

Thinking is beside the point.

“Why did you show it to me here? I can’t dance.”

Jonghyun breaks into a smile, stupid with happiness.

“I couldn’t wait, I wanted to see your face.” He hesitates, eyeing Taemin like he’s still hanging on for the rest of his reaction. “You like it?”

Taemin steals his phone and takes it from the top.


	7. Cocktail

Jonghyun hyung.

“That’s Jonginnie.”

Taemin must have said it out loud. He tries again. “Jonghyunhyung.”

“I’m right here, Taeminnie.”

Good. Wherever here is. There are hands on him, warm and firm. He walks into them and hits something solid. He falls but somehow he doesn’t. Then he sees him.

“Can you guys get yourselves home? Do you want me to call you a taxi?”

Jonghyun.

“No taxi.” Loud as he can. Holds on with all he’s got. “Hyung.”

No taxi. Jonghyun takes him someplace else. Car.

“This is the first time I’ve seen you all week.”

If he says so. He’s all Taemin can see. Right now. Always.

“You say I can’t drink, but look at you.” Pause. “How much did you have?”

Four is black out. Three?

“Soju,” so sure that’s the answer.

Not three.

Four.

 

The first thing Taemin does when lunchtime rolls around is turn his phone on. The next is call Jonghyun back, because he knows better than to listen to the three voicemails he left. Taemin has had all day to fail at piecing together last night, ever since he woke up alone in their dorm room with his head splitting open, a bottle of Dawn 808 on the bedside table and a post-it on his forehead, telling him there was hangover soup in the fridge.

Jonghyun picks up on the third ring. He doesn’t let Taemin say anything before he asks, “This is the first time you’ve had to talk all day?” and only gives him a few seconds to reply, then moves on to, “You’re not ignoring me?”

It’s not the first time, and Taemin’s not ignoring him. He could have tried Jonghyun first thing in the morning, on the drive over to SM, or during any one of the breaks the dancer hyungs forced him to take, in between sweating out his hangover on the dance floor. Instead he waited until now, so he could come up here to the roof and feel the wind on his face and talk to him where no one else could hear.

It would take too long to explain any of that to Jonghyun, though, so instead he says, “What did you want to talk about?” and doesn’t realize his mistake until it’s already out of his mouth. Then he just hopes Jonghyun doesn’t ask if he listened to his messages.

Silence, short and hard.

“You’re not still upset?” Which, what? After last night Taemin’s pretty sure he has no right to be, he’s pretty sure he should be the one asking that. Before he can, though, Jonghyun goes on, almost carefully, “I said I’d come after Blue Night, and I did, but by the time I got there you didn’t even recognize me.”

Taemin remembers half of that, the part where Jonghyun spent Saturday night with his radio show instead of Taemin, because he’d spent all week with his album instead of Taemin, and ran out of time to pre-record his weekend broadcasts. Taemin said fine, said he’d go out with his friends instead. A lot of them were kind of Jonghyun’s friends, too, so if he wanted to show up later that was fine too. And then he went and Jonghyun wasn’t there and wasn’t there and wasn’t there, but soju was. And soju was. And soju was.

It’s the other half that’s killing him.

“I’m sorry, hyung,” he says in a rush. “I ruined your night, I’m really, really sorry.” Half of him wants to know for what exactly, and the other half never wants to hear Jonghyun say anything about it ever. He has to ask, though. “Did I do anything weird?”

Silence again.

Then Jonghyun says shortly, “You’d have to ask your friends that,” and that’s as far as he’ll go. Like somehow asking him about it now is worse than any of the things Taemin might’ve pulled. Or something.

Taemin’s head hurts. He just wants to skip to the end of this conversation, get as close as he can to not having it. He gives whining a try. “Hyung~”

Jonghyun isn’t here to see the face he’s making, though, so it’s useless. It doesn’t seem like he’s in the mood to hear it, either, and as more and more time passes with nothing on his end, Taemin thinks maybe Jonghyun’s not in the mood for him, period.

“What do you want to know?” Jonghyun says finally. “Are you worried you might have acted like you’re in love with me, or something?”

What’s that supposed to mean?

He almost says that out loud, just manages to keep it back, then tries to hang on until Jonghyun comes out with the next thing. Jonghyun gives him as much time as he needs to come up with a reply, though. Waits and waits for him. Taemin wishes he could hear him breathing in his ear, and thinks in circles. He gets nowhere.

The thing is, Taemin has never tried to act any kind of way with Jonghyun. For him, the only difference between public and private is how much he can say out loud. And when he’s drunk, there’s no such thing as either, so.

Somehow what he ends up with is, “It’s not funny,” which, Jonghyun never said it was.

“No, it’s not,” Jonghyun says now. Taemin isn’t sure if it’s his turn again, just waits for Jonghyun to steal it, if it is. And then, in a voice that does things to Taemin, “You didn’t do anything. You were cute, is all.”

What is _that_ supposed to mean?

Jonghyun moves on first. “What are you up to now, where are you?”

Finally, something Taemin knows how to answer.

“Practice,” he tells him. “It’s been months but I don’t think I’ll have to relearn anything. Some of the dancer hyungs are new, but they pick things up really fast.”

After spending the last month on his Japanese EP, SM is sending him to Taiwan for a showcase. All that means right now is he’s back on _Press It_ and “Press Your Number,” and that part of his career was over until suddenly it wasn’t, which is just the way it goes. He spends his whole life going back and forth.

“You’re just slow,” Jonghyun tells him. “You’re always the last one to learn all the steps, you’re worse than Jinki hyung. Your mistakes don’t look like mistakes, that’s all.”

“I just hope I don’t forget ‘Sayonara Hitori’ now.”

“Taiwan isn’t enough for you? It’s Japan or nothing?”

Jonghyun’s laugh flutters in Taemin’s stomach, and at some point he realizes he’s smiling too.

“What about you, hyung?” he says. “What are you doing?”

“MV,” Jonghyun says. Taemin wants to hear more, but Jonghyun stops there, like that’s as much as he can stand to talk about it.

“And tonight?” Taemin presses.

“MV.”

There’s something in his voice that makes it so hard not to laugh at him. Taemin spends the next few seconds just trying to get his face under control, even though no one can see him, least of all Jonghyun.

“It’s that bad?” he says.

“PD-nim thinks we can wrap this up today if we go late,” Jonghyun says. “I hope he’s right, I’m so fucking bored of this. You got to go to America, and I’m stuck in a lot.”

Taemin does laugh this time. “What about Blue Night?”

Jonghyun groans. “You’re supposed to be helping, Taeminnie. You’re supposed to distract me, you’re not supposed to stress me out more.”

Taemin was just asking. He’s always just asking, he never thinks.

Jonghyun forgives him for that, the way he always does. This time it takes him maybe half a second. “What about tomorrow?”

“I don’t know, I’d have to ask Manager Hyung,” Taemin replies, because he really doesn’t, and he really would, not because he wants to say it. The words still taste so bad.

Jonghyun takes that in, and all he says is, “So you’re busy.”

“Yeah.”

 

Jonghyun’s shoot runs on another day and into the night again, long after Taemin gets out of work himself, long enough for Taemin to miss him.

Still, he shouldn’t have come to visit the set, not with Minho. And he wouldn’t have, if he’d have known that Minho would gift the staff with a food truck and bring Jonghyun tteokbokki. Now he just feels rude on top of stupid and useless, sitting at a rickety plastic table with the two of them, little paper cups of water and foil tray open in the middle, sauce on Jonghyun’s lips and moonlight in his hair.

“Eat up, Taeminnie,” Minho says, reaching over to pet his hair. “PD-nim treated us and I’m still full.”

Minho has a movie opening this month, and now the next one he’s signed on for has gone into pre-production. When he picked Taemin up he’d just come from a script reading, and dinner too apparently.

Jonghyun gives Taemin a smile, one that curls in his stomach. “Do you want hyung to feed you~?”

Taemin stuffs his face.

“What’s up with the fork crane?” Minho asks, after he’s had a while to look around the set and listen to their silence.

Jonghyun doesn’t bother swallowing before he replies, mouth full and red as he says, “It’s part of the story, you’ll understand when you watch it,” and Taemin chews his food instead of raising his doubts. Jonghyun’s tried explaining the concept behind the video to him like ten times, and it still makes no sense to him. Which, whatever. It’s not like Taemin understood half the things in “Press Your Number’s” MV, let alone some of the ones they’ve all done together as Shinee.

Jonghyun looks cute in yellow. That’s enough for him.

Not for Minho, though. “SM wouldn’t spring for something cooler?”

“Fork cranes are more expensive to get than fancy cars,” Jonghyun retorts, hiding his smile behind his cup. He can’t leave it there, either. “And they’re cuter. They have personality.”

Minho responds in kind, and they’re off. All Taemin has to do is let them talk, listen to Jonghyun’s voice and sneak glances at Jonghyun when he can feel Jonghyun’s eyes on him too, eat the rest of the tteokbokki, and try not to let it show when it tastes lonely and goes down like gravel. He thinks he’s failing pretty terribly by the time Minho gets up to find the bathroom, and finally hands Jonghyun over to him for a while.

Taemin doesn’t even have anything to say that Jonghyun might want to hear, not really, but still, Jonghyun half scoots half drags his chair around the table until they’re sitting shoulder-to-shoulder, puts his hand on Taemin’s thigh, warm through to his skin. Says in his ear, lips brushing Taemin’s skin, “Thank you.”

And all of the sudden Taemin can’t eat anymore. All of the sudden he can’t stop himself from staring, taking Jonghyun in, the way he’s wanted to this whole time.

“For what? I just showed up, Minho hyung did everything.”

“You didn’t tell me you were coming.” Jonghyun brushes his knuckles across Taemin’s cheek, and Taemin catches himself leaning into his hand. “I got to see your face.”

“We saw each other the other night,” comes out of Taemin next.

He hasn’t done anything to make Jonghyun smile at him, but that’s never stopped Jonghyun before, and it doesn’t now. Slight curve of his lips, small and tired, but there. “You said you didn’t remember any of it, though?”

There’s something in his face that makes Taemin want to start at the beginning again, makes him say, “I really didn’t do anything bad? Really?”

For the longest time Jonghyun just looks at him, lets Taemin search his face. Then his mouth crooks, his eyes crinkle up at the corners, and all of the sudden he breaks into a smile, bright and happy and totally out of place here, at the end of the day he must have had. Bumping his shoulder into Taemin’s, he comes out with, “You couldn’t get enough of me~” and when it becomes clear Taemin’s not finding this as fun as he is, he puts some weight into it, leans in against his side. “Don’t give me that look, you asked.”

Taemin really can’t handle him.

“It’s your problem too, hyung, why are you acting like it’s not?” he says. There’s this feeling in his stomach, halfway between flying and falling, and Jonghyun’s smile is under his skin, in his stomach, fighting its way onto his own face. “If I have to explain anything to them it’s for you, too.”

Finally Jonghyun takes him seriously, at least enough to stop pretending he can’t hear what Taemin’s not saying.

“They don’t know you like I do, Taeminnie. It’s nothing they would get,” he says lowly. That counts as an answer, a real one, so Taemin doesn’t know what he’s still waiting for, breathing a little tight, ears a little hot. He finds Jonghyun’s hand under the table and holds on, and decides he’ll just let Jonghyun get to him. Half a second later, loud enough that anyone could hear, as if it’s a completely normal thing to say, Jonghyun goes on, “I’ve always been your favorite, right?”

Taemin’s breathing tightens up a little more and his ears go a little hotter. And Jonghyun sees everything, he probably knows what he’s doing to Taemin, and he probably likes it too. He’s evil.

“I already told you I liked you this whole time, what do you think,” Taemin tells him, kind of hushed, kind of strangled. The quieter he tries to be the louder his voice sounds to his own ears.

“It wouldn’t kill you to say it,” Jonghyun says, and before Taemin can escape he tightens his grip, pulls Taemin’s hand into his own lap. Then smirks at him, and means something else when he tells Taemin, “'Jonghyun hyung is the best.’ Like that.”

“Are you trying to steal Taeminnie from the rest of us?”

Minho.

Jonghyun doesn’t take his eyes off Taemin. “He’s already mine.”

He says it like he’s kidding, but Taemin knows better, and how could he not, with his whole body burning like this, Jonghyun’s thumb stroking along Taemin’s knuckles, thigh pressing into his, mouth curling into a secret smile. It takes both of his hands to pry Jonghyun’s off of his, and that’s only because his muscles have turned to jelly, and his ears are rushing and he can’t think and. 

Minho isn’t convinced, and appeals to Taemin because of course he does. “Taemin-ah, who do you like better, Minho hyung or Jonghyun hyung~?"

“Who did you come all this way to see?” Jonghyun demands.

Minho laughs out loud. “Who’s giving you a ride home tonight~?”

“Who took care of you when you were drunk?”

“Who bought you tteokbokki~?”

“What are you talking about, you bought that for me. Who never lies to you, Taemin-ah~?”

“I let you have my share, Taeminnie. That counts.”

“I feed you all the time, that counts more.”

On and on. They won’t stop. They’re leaving him behind again. No matter what he says now, it won’t mean anything. They’ll make it into a joke and twist it around. And Jonghyun always does this to him, plays around until suddenly he’s not, puts him on the spot at the weirdest times in the weirdest ways and tries to make things into something they’re not, does it to Taemin in front of other people and then acts like it’s Taemin’s fault he can’t just say _I love you,_ and and and.

“Right now I hate you both,” he blurts out.

That shuts them up.

Taemin has one split second of relief before he starts feeling like shit. It gets worse and worse, watching Jonghyun’s face fall, waiting for him to forget himself and smile again, trying to catch Jonghyun’s eyes, then making himself look once he manages. Jonghyun takes a few minutes saying goodbye to Minho, catching up and joking around, killing time before he has to get back to work. Then it’s Taemin’s turn and all he gets is a hand ruffling through his hair, and this look on Jonghyun’s face he can’t read.

Taemin wants to say _I won’t be sorry about the other night if you don’t want me to be,_ and _I’m sorry about just now._ He wants to say, _You know how much I love you, right?_

But the most he can say is, “Good night, hyung.”

When Jonghyun nods, and that’s it, Taemin goes in for a hug. Jonghyun lets Taemin do it, fold him into his arms and squeeze him tight and push his face into his hair. Taemin holds him, the whole time knowing he’ll have to step back, but it’s only when he gives in, starts to pull away, that Jonghyun’s arms tighten around him, hands closing into fists at Taemin’s back, fingers caught in his shirt, and Jonghyun holds on with everything he’s got.

Taemin wants to stay right here forever. He waits for Jonghyun to let him go.


	8. Red

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> These last two parts are directly related, so I'm just going to go ahead and post both tonight. A little bit early too, because the World Cup and my normal sleep schedule don't get along. In other news my bracket is already a disaster lolol.

“You’re the first person to see.”

Even in the sallow light of the street stall, Jonghyun’s album is so pretty, blue and pink and yellow. When Jonghyun gave him a peek at the cover art a week back what came out of Taemin’s mouth was, “You didn’t copy me this time,” and now that he has it in his hands he’s doing even worse.

It’s okay. Jonghyun knows how he is and he loves it.

“You didn’t even write me a message,” Taemin says.

He hides his smile behind his fist, but Jonghyun finds him out in a second. When he protests, “I put my everything into this album. Giving it to you is like giving you my heart,” he’s only playing along, and trying not to laugh.

Taemin’s still skips a beat.

It’d be no fun to give himself away now, though, so Taemin tosses him the least impressed look he can muster, tells him, “Come next week anybody with money can go out and get a copy.”

“Look inside,” Jonghyun commands, reaching across the table.

Taemin beats him to it, flips open the cover and rifles through the photobook and exclaims over his Jonghyun photocard, but Jonghyun’s hand lingers on his, thumb rubbing across Taemin’s knuckles. Taemin doesn’t do anything about it. It’s three a.m. and the ahjumma at the counter has her own hands full, getting a group of drunken salary men drunker.

Jonghyun watches Taemin’s face until he grows shy, and Taemin sits with him while Jonghyun picks at his soondae, shoots him smiles. Time passes.

Eventually Jonghyun asks, “Are you tired, Taeminnie?”

Taemin doesn’t want to go home, either, so they go to the river.

 

They walk together for a while, shoulders bumping, fingers brushing.

“What day is your flight?” Jonghyun says.

When SM went over the details for his showcase in Taiwan, they must have given him some dates and times too, but all Taemin’s got in his head are the things he can work on right now. Manager Hyung will get him where he needs to go.

“You don’t know, do you.” It’s no use lying to Jonghyun, so Taemin lets him have his fun. “Is there anything you do know?”

Somehow his smile ends up on Taemin’s face. “Just that I’ll come back in time for your showcase~”

Jonghyun gives him a look.

“I know your schedule better than you, Taeminnie,” he says. Taemin has one second where he’s safe, he knows exactly where this is going, before Jonghyun twists everything around on him. Says, “It just worked out with mine this time, that’s all.”

The joke’s over.

They keep walking, and Taemin finally goes back to the part where he has to find a way to say the things he wants Jonghyun to hear. He spends a lot of time coming up short, and then some more making himself go there.

“I’m really proud of you, hyung.”

“Aigoo.” Jonghyun reaches up to pinch his cheek, makes it okay to look at him again. And then he turns it into something else again. “I don’t know why I’m so excited. I hate this part.”

He means promotions. Taemin can’t blame him. Taemin is a performer, he lives for the stage, but getting himself up there is hell. For every three minutes he spends singing and dancing, there are twenty-hour days filled with nothing but confusion, anxiety, insanity. Boredom. Schedules that don’t mean anything to him, schedules he wastes more time dreading, schedules he’ll fail at no matter how hard he tries.

It’s worse for Jonghyun. To him, all the talking feels like lying, and going in front of the camera feels like pretending, and the end of one day is just the beginning of the next one. All he ever wants is out.

“You have to take care of yourself this time around, okay?”

This time Taemin feels Jonghyun’s smile in his chest. “I have you for that now.”

“You just finished telling me how much I suck at it,” Taemin reminds him, but it’s not funny anymore. All he has left is the stuff Jonghyun already knows, the stuff he always tells Taemin and never does himself. Still, “Eat when you have time, don’t wait till you’re hungry. Don’t sleep in your car. If you can’t make it home go back to the dorm.”

“Yes, Taemin seonbaenim~” Jonghyun replies, getting under Taemin’s skin, probably ignoring him too. Then he says, “Taeminnie,” in a voice that makes Taemin forget all that. “Don’t try to stay away from me, it won’t do me any good. If you do I’ll go crazy. I’ll blame you too.” His eyes burn into Taemin’s face. “I have time for you.”

That’s only if he doesn’t go to bed. But he won’t sleep, with or without Taemin, and Taemin’s never been able to leave him alone. When he’s away from Jonghyun, Jonghyun is away from him, too, he doesn’t get why Jonghyun doesn’t get that. He doesn’t get why Jonghyun thinks this is so much easier for him, why he doesn’t see how hard he’s trying.

He doesn’t get why he doesn’t just tell Jonghyun that now, either, but all he can get out is, “You’re already crazy, it’s too late for you,” and that’s even less funny. He can’t say the right thing tonight, he’s fucking up so badly.

Jonghyun takes his hand all the same. There’s no one around. Taemin hangs on.

“So take responsibility for me,” Jonghyun says. Taemin doesn’t try to smile, his face does it to him all on its own, and before he can get rid of it Jonghyun sees. Takes him in. Stops. Gives him a smile of his own, just as painful, just as real. “You don’t like hearing it, but I still like saying it.”

It’s not about what he likes.

When Taemin takes a step, then another, Jonghyun doesn’t move, and Taemin doesn’t want to let him go. The only thing left to do is make himself look, so he does. He looks and looks. Jonghyun spent all day over at SM prepping for his comeback, and he just got out of Blue Night an hour ago. All that time Taemin missed, all that time Jonghyun spent on his own, it’s all right there, in the shadows under his eyes, the slump of his shoulders, the mess of his hair, where he must have run his fingers through a thousand times. And now he’s here with Taemin, face washed in moonlight, hand in his, eyes on him.

“I like it.”

Jonghyun gets this look on his face, the same one he always gets when Taemin’s just kissed him. Taemin knows he’s going to pull Taemin into his arms before he tries it, and he lets him, too. Wraps his arms around Jonghyun, hides his face in his hair, feels him against him, so warm and soft. They’re the only two people in the world.

“I already miss you,” Jonghyun says into his neck.

Taemin pats his back, not sure what else to do. “I’m right here, hyung.”

And then Jonghyun pulls back, just until their eyes can meet, just a breath away. And everything stops. Every last thing. Taemin has all the time he needs to think, to push Jonghyun away, to remember where they are, middle of the path in the middle of a public park in the middle of Seoul, but he doesn’t do any of that. He stays right where he is, and waits.

And when Jonghyun kisses him, Taemin responds.

Slow and soft and lingering, so good Taemin can barely take it. Jonghyun’s fingers sift through his hair, rubbing his scalp, pulling just a little. He smiles against Taemin’s lips every time Taemin lets him win, makes a noise, and he presses in closer when Taemin bites his mouth open, licks inside. Half sighs half moans, gets a hand on the small of Taemin’s back and brings him in against his body, chases him when he draws away to breathe, until Taemin takes his face in his hands and leans their foreheads together. Jonghyun’s eyes are closed, but Taemin keeps his open, just to look at him. Jonghyun is all he can see.

Then.

Out of nowhere.

Out of the corner of his eye.

The next thing he knows Jonghyun is on his ass on the ground, and a woman jogs by. Taemin stares so she stares back. And then she’s gone and Taemin can’t remember ever seeing her face, just her lime green headphones. And then.

Jonghyun. He’s up before Taemin can think to check on him, grass stain on his pants, dirt on his palms, but he’s fine. Taemin didn’t hurt him. He’s fine. Taemin just pushed too hard. He’s fine. Jonghyun is fine.

He won’t look at Taemin.

“Taemin-ah…what do you think this is?”

At the sound of his voice Taemin freezes.

“What?”

“What is this to you?” And then finally, suddenly, he lifts his head, meets Taemin’s eyes, turns him inside out. “What am I?”

Taemin doesn’t know where this is coming from. He doesn’t know what he’s supposed to do. He can’t think and he can’t talk and if he doesn’t catch up now, Jonghyun will leave him behind. Maybe he’ll hate Taemin, maybe he already does.

“I don’t get what you’re asking me,” he begins, because that’s the one thing he has.

Jonghyun’s eyes flare, and he says over Taemin, “Am I your boyfriend?” and gives Taemin a few seconds with that, as his gaze sharpens, his mouth thins and the air between them crushes in on itself. “You can’t even answer that,” Jonghyun says, voice gone so wrong, and all Taemin can think is that he did this to Jonghyun somehow. And then. “Do you even love me?”

Taemin’s whole world stops. It’s the second time tonight, it’s the first time in his life. It’s always the first time, trapped inside this feeling. Taemin can never go back, and it never looks the same from the other side.

This time it’s hell. This time he wants out.

“You can ask me that?”

 _“You don’t fucking act like you do!”_ For one crazy second Taemin wants to shush him, remind him where they are, but she’s long gone, and the river and the trees and the moon don’t give a shit. Only Taemin can hear him. “I’m just hyung, same as before. You play with me and you use me and you do whatever you want, and then you put me away when you’re done with me. You don’t ask me for anything, you never do.” Jonghyun runs out of breath before he runs out of ways to hurt Taemin. As they stare at each other Jonghyun’s face twists into a smile, foul and bitter. He looks Taemin right in the eye and says, “I’m just supposed to take what I can get,” and Taemin doesn’t know what to do with that.

So he stands there and doesn’t know what to do with that and sees red. No feeling in his face, heart hammering so hard it might break if it keeps it up. And then, “You never told me, I didn’t know that’s how it was,” and, “This is the first time you’ve said _anything,”_ and it’s his voice, he’s the one that said it.

“You’re not thirteen anymore, Taeminnie,” Jonghyun snaps, voice low and trembling, and it’s like he’s struggling for control, now that there’s no point. “I shouldn’t have to do everything, I should be able to talk to you. But every time I try you find some way to get out of it.” That’s not fair. That’s so fucking unfair. Taemin has to tell him that, say something, defend himself, but Jonghyun’s so far gone and there’s no stopping him until he says, “Being with you is like being alone half the time,” and it’s too late for both of them.

“That’s the way our lives work, hyung!” Taemin shouts, so loud he can feel the words leaving his body, ripping up his throat. He’s never told Jonghyun, he’s never said anything either, but this is so obvious, he shouldn’t have to say, “You have yours, and I have mine.” And Jonghyun has no right to take it so badly when he says, “I’m sorry I can’t ask you to give that up for me, I’m sorry I won’t give mine up for you, but you would hate me if I did.” And Jonghyun can shut his mouth until he’s fucking finished. “I’ve never looked at anyone else in ten fucking years, you’ve looked at me for what, two? Three? But I don’t love you enough.” Taemin can’t breathe. He can’t breathe. “I make you feel alone.”

He’s done.

He gets two steps away before Jonghyun jerks him back, vice-grip on his arm, “Where the fuck do you think you’re going?” and then he’s right in front of Taemin again, and he just looks like Jonghyun, and Taemin’s so angry at him and he can’t breathe.

He yanks away, and when Jonghyun hangs on it hurts. It all hurts. He struggles. Tries to twist free. It’s all for nothing. All he has to do is shove Jonghyun again, step on his foot, pry his fingers away, tell him he hates him. Instead he says, “Do you know what would happen if we got caught? You have to, if you don’t it’s because you don’t want to.”

Jonghyun takes hold of his other arm, holds him right where he is, so he doesn’t miss anything when he throws Taemin’s words back in his face. “You talked about our lives,” he says. “I’m not a part of your life? Being with me isn’t a part of your life?” His hands are trembling, Taemin can feel it, and still he shakes Taemin, like he’s trying to make him see. “Do you live just to dance and make money and go on TV? Does that make you happy?” Taemin doesn’t make Jonghyun happy, either, so what’s the point of asking that. What’s the fucking point. “You go to work and you forget about me and then you give me whatever’s left. Half the time I get to see you that’s nothing. And then it starts again.”

Maybe Taemin has to listen to him, but he doesn’t have to look, he doesn’t have to let Jonghyun see what he’s doing to him. Whatever this feeling is. Jonghyun won’t even give him that. He takes Taemin’s face in his hands, brings his chin up.

“I forget everything else when I’m with you. And then I go back to all that shit, and I take you with me everywhere. You’re the most important thing to me.” And if his heart is hurting like this, Taemin doesn’t know what Jonghyun must be doing to himself when he says, “I need you.” And then he says, “You don’t need me,” and Taemin doesn’t know what he’s done to Jonghyun, either. What he’s ever done that could make Jonghyun think that, in all eleven years they’ve known each other.

“You say that, but you don’t listen to me and you don’t let me do anything for you. Ever.” Taemin doesn’t realize he’s said it out loud until Jonghyun opens his mouth to talk over him, and if there’s one thing that makes Taemin crazy. “You think you know everything. Well, I’m supposed to know, too. What you need, what you want, all that stuff. That’s how it’s supposed to work. But you never tell me, and now you’re blaming me for that. It’s hard on me. You’re hard on me.” As soon as he says it he wants to take it back. Instead he has to watch as it hits Jonghyun’s face, tightens his mouth, furrows his brow, gets under his skin and lingers in his eyes, and Taemin can’t take much more of this, and he doesn’t want to fight, and, “You probably hate me for saying that, too, and then you’ll hate yourself more, and then I’ll have to hate myself, and I just, I fucking hate this so much.”

Jonghyun lets him go. “You can just hate me.”

That’s never been an option. If Jonghyun doesn’t know that by now, that’s not Taemin’s problem.

He won’t answer that.

Jonghyun doesn’t grab him this time, just keeps up. Taemin wants to run. It’s dark, and with his chest caved in like this he won’t get far, and he knows how stupid he’d look. The stars are light years away, but down here the night closes in on him. For the longest time the one thing that tells him he’s not alone out here is the sound of Jonghyun’s footsteps. It’s only when they reach the car that he has Jonghyun’s voice, too.

“You don’t want to talk to me anymore, that’s fine.” Taemin doesn’t know what he’s going to do, if he should leave Jonghyun behind, until Jonghyun says, “I can’t let you go off on your own. It’s late, you’ll get lost. Get in the car.”

Taemin does what he’s told.

The silence changes once it’s just the two of them and the road stretched out in front of them, nowhere to go, nothing to do but sit here and take it. It’s so much louder, ringing in Taemin’s ears, eating him from the inside out. They’re half an hour away from Taemin’s apartment, and he’s not even sure he can last another five minutes.

He’s never looked at Jonghyun and felt alone, until now.

“What do you want, hyung?” he says finally. “Do you want to tell the others?” He swallows. “Our parents?”

He doesn’t have to tell Jonghyun what that could do to them. How much he might have to give up, the people he’ll have to let down, just to hold Taemin’s hand.

“Yes.”

A whole year avoiding this moment, and now here they are, and it’s so easy it’s scary. “It’s not enough that I love you?”

“Taemin-ah,” Jonghyun says. For the longest time that’s all he can get out. The silence returns, and it’s worse now that Taemin’s just waiting for him to break it. “If you don’t want to tell them, I’ll understand. But I can’t take much more of this.” Jonghyun glances at him, flexes his fingers on the wheel, and then goes back to the road. “I won’t.”

It’s not about what Taemin wants.

They hit a red light, come to another stop. This time the world goes on without him. 

“You won’t love me anymore?”

As he says it he hates himself. Jonghyun won’t look at him. He hates himself some more, until he’s sick with it.

“Don’t ask me stuff like that,” Jonghyun says, voice rough.

Taemin wishes he could hate him. “You asked me earlier.”

And then another stop, this time in the parking lot of Taemin’s building. The last one.

Instead of kissing him good night, Jonghyun says, “You can make me wait, Taeminnie. Give yourself as much time as you need to think. Just don’t talk to me again until you’ve thought about it. How much you like me, how far you can go with me.” Of all things he smiles at Taemin, and he’s not even faking it. It looks like it hurts. “I’ll still be here when you’re ready. Don’t worry, either, I’ll be so busy I won’t have time to think of you.”

“You said you always do.”

 

The look Jonghyun gives him sticks in his chest all the way up the stairs, into his room and under his blanket. The rest of the night, this past year, the good things and the bad, it all comes pouring out of him. But when he’s run out of tears, Jonghyun is still inside him, and it hurts more than ever. 

He doesn’t have to get up tomorrow. He doesn’t have to sleep. Jonghyun does, and Taemin knows he won’t. He never does, and there’s never a reason, but tonight it’s Taemin’s fault.

The only thing he can do for Jonghyun now is think of him.

The first thing he finds when he lifts his face from his pillow is _She Is,_ face down on his floor, split open, crumpled in on itself from a bad fall. He has to rescue it, but then Jonghyun is right there, under his fingertips, staring up at him. It would be so easy to click the light back on, linger on every page of the photobook, read the message on the photocard, lie here and like Jonghyun all by himself, the way he used to. Instead he wakes up his laptop and feeds Jonghyun’s CD to it. Puts his headphones in and listens to Jonghyun’s heart and doesn’t say anything back.

That’s where the sun finds him.


	9. Suit Up

Jonghyun looks cool on TV.

Taemin’s mom thinks so, too. Whenever she sees him in person she treats him like a third son, tells him to eat more, teases him about his latest hair color, scolds him for things she heard about from his own mother. And now he’s on M Countdown, and she’s clapping and humming along and she’s got this smile on her face she probably doesn’t even know is there, watching him.

Eventually she catches Taemin watching her instead, gives him her phone, tells him to cast her vote for Jonghyun. He does, and then he goes into his room and lies on his bed and waits for his heart to stop hurting, and to understand this feeling that’s not sadness, and not joy. Something in between, maybe. Maybe both at once.

It doesn’t, and he never will.

He can live with it. He has to.

That’s life.

When he finds his own phone, he votes for Jonghyun, too. And then he texts him. It takes him an hour to write a few words.

 _i miss u_ is his first try. _can we talk_ is his second. And then, finally, the thing he doesn’t want to say, the one he can actually bring himself to send.

_do u have time_

He spends five minutes in agony, ten minutes, fifteen, before his phone buzzes to life in his fist, and then it takes twice as long to make himself look. He has to tell himself it’ll be someone else, Jongin passing on some stupid joke, one of the others checking up on him, Manager Hyung reminding him he has to do something. Spam.

And then it’s from Jonghyun and he has a moment where he can breathe, before his chest tightens and he starts over.

_after blue night_

 

“Let’s do it.”

Jonghyun takes that in. Begins, so carefully, “Taemin-ah—”

And Taemin has to stop him.

“I think we should start with Jinki hyung, then he can help with the others,” he says in a painful rush, no time left to think it through now that he’s here. He had the last few days for that, he could have had all year. “I don’t think it’ll be bad. Just weird? Maybe they won’t even believe us at first. Maybe they’ll be pissed we waited this long.”

“Taemin-ah, slow down.”

He can’t. His chest is already closing up, and if he doesn’t get this out now he never will, and he has to. Just one last thing, just, “I want to, hyung. Let’s tell them.”

He wishes they could have had this conversation somewhere besides Jonghyun’s car, world shut out and streetlight filtering in through the windshield, twisted in their seats trying to make each other out in the half-dark.

“Don’t tell me what you think I want to hear,” Jonghyun says next. Before Taemin can figure out how to make him take that back, he’s rattling off, “You’ve thought it over. You’re sure. You won’t regret it,” and on and on, until Taemin stops hearing what he’s saying, listening to his voice shake.

He reaches for Jonghyun’s hand and squeezes it. Jonghyun shuts up and hangs on. Breathes.

“I thought it was fine as long as no one misunderstood us. I thought that would be enough,” Taemin tells him. “But from now on I think I’ll just try to understand you.”

Jonghyun’s not sure how to take that, Taemin can tell. He’s probably just going to tell Taemin to think of himself, tell him that if he goes this far he can’t do it for anyone else. And then Taemin will have to convince him how selfish he’s being, putting Jonghyun first, before everything and everyone else in his life, and they’ll be here all night.

So Taemin says, “I thought a lot about the stuff you said,” and even if he’s telling the truth, he really did, a lot, Jonghyun is so easy it’s ridiculous.

Right away he’s saying, “I was angry, I didn’t mean a lot of it, I said it to hurt you,” and when he’s risked a glance at Taemin’s face and Taemin’s just trying not to do something awful like laugh at him, “You have no idea how I got through the last few days. I don’t either.”

“Don’t say you’re sorry, hyung,” Taemin says. “If you do, I have to say it too, and I don’t want to.” He takes a deep breath and stops fighting his smile, lets it take over his face and settle it in his stomach, this strange bright feeling. “Neither of us was wrong.”

Jonghyun’s been watching him closely, and now he reaches up to pinch his cheek, tells him flatly, “Neither of us was right, either,” but he’s smiling too.

Somehow that makes Taemin’s throat close up, makes his chest go tight, and all of the sudden he’s in this place where he has so much he wants to say to Jonghyun, and he understands himself least of all.

“Hyung…there’s a lot I can’t do for you,” he gets out. Then, while he can still look, “There’s a lot I can’t give you.” Then, to his knees, “I don’t know how much this will change anything.” Then, trying to clear his chest out, trying to get Jonghyun to laugh before Taemin makes him cry or something, “We’ll run out of people we can tell pretty fast.”

Jonghyun fits his hand to Taemin’s cheek, turns his face towards him again, and he looks so normal Taemin gets stuck. “That’s just our lives, Taeminnie.”

“You got so mad at me when I said that,” Taemin reminds him.

Jonghyun takes it as a reproach the way he always does when Taemin uses his words against him. He leans in to kiss Taemin’s mouth, his cheek, his forehead, nudge his nose against Taemin’s. Tells him, “I thought about what you said too, you know,” and then, pulling back, holding his gaze, “I wasn’t asking you to give anything up for me. I won’t, either. I know how hard you fought to get where you are, I know how much it means to you.” He wrinkles his nose, tries a smile on Taemin that just makes his heart hurt. “It’s too late, anyway. I shouldn’t have wasted so much time on other people, I should have gotten to you before the rest of the country did.”

That’s the kind of thing no one should be allowed to say in real life, so cheesy Taemin has to laugh so he won’t die inside. Jonghyun doesn’t mind, maybe because he sees right through Taemin, maybe because Taemin isn’t trying to hide anything from him, not the blush burning up his face or the hearts in his eyes. And as soon as he can breathe again, before he can think, he says, “Does that make any sense, what about you? Jonghyun oppa~?” and the things that does to Jonghyun aren’t even funny, catch in his breathing, slow half-smile. 

And then, later, finally, when Taemin can control himself again, and the air is like new, warm and close and quiet.

“I liked music on my own, but I wouldn’t have gotten anywhere without you,” Taemin says. “You always say you’re my fan, but you’re not the only one. I’m yours too.” This next thing doesn’t come as easily, catches in his throat, but suddenly it’s so important. “I don’t want to give up that side of you. I like the parts of you I can’t have as much as the parts I can.”

For a long moment Jonghyun doesn’t say anything. Taemin hears him shift in his seat, and by the time he’s found it in himself to look again, Jonghyun is already reaching for him, pressing something into his hand.

“If you lose it,” he says roughly, before he cuts himself off, blinking fast and staring out the window, and _it_ is a ring. Same as the one already on Jonghyun’s finger, catching the moonlight as he rubs at his eyes.

Couple rings.

“What? You’ll stop talking to me?” Taemin says, barely able to shape the words, he’s smiling so hard.

“Mm.”

“You’ll hate me?”

“Mm.”

“No sex?”

Jonghyun hesitates. “Mm.”

“Oh! I think I dropped it,” Taemin just barely gets out, before he gives himself away, laughing like crazy all over again, and loses the plot. And somewhere in the middle of Jonghyun grabbing his hand and pushing the ring onto his finger, then groaning, “Taemin-aaaah,” like that’ll get him to stop, putting his head down on the steering wheel to hide his own smile when it doesn’t…

Taemin realizes he’s already trying to remember this moment.

 

“Go on, Taeminnie.”

They’ve swapped the river for Taemin’s building, and Jonghyun only says it after they’ve been sitting in his car for Taemin doesn’t know how long, and it still comes too soon. Taemin reaches for his hand, ring cool under his fingertip.

“Walk me up.”

Jonghyun considers it for maybe half a second before he gives himself away, breaks into a smile that hits Taemin like sunlight. Nods.

The silence that stretched out over the parking lot echoes in the lobby. Taemin moved his parents into this building as soon as he could afford it, and it’s nicer than their old place, but a few years into living here himself it still doesn’t feel like home, any more than the dorm did. Jonghyun has only ever come as far as the elevators, and now here he is, at Taemin’s door.

“Come in,” Taemin says in a rush, scared Jonghyun will try to say good night, and then he doesn’t second-guess, his mouth doesn’t go dry, his heart doesn’t explode. Just plays with Jonghyun’s fingers, and works up his courage to say, “Stay.”

“I don’t want to sneak out in the morning,” Jonghyun replies, like Taemin is being unreasonable. Like Taemin didn’t just put every little part of himself out there for him to take, or something.

“So don’t. If my parents see you they won’t think anything weird.”

Jonghyun gives him a look, and Taemin tries to fix that, too, presses his fingers into the corners of Jonghyun’s eyes and smooths his thumb over his brow. It doesn’t work, it just makes Jonghyun take him by the wrists, hold his hands up between them.

“There’s nothing weird about me sleeping with you,” he tells Taemin.

“Or fucking me?” Taemin suggests.

He knows he hasn’t won when Jonghyun’s face falls open, and he drops Taemin’s hands to hold his face instead, says firmly, “Or kissing you,” and plants one on Taemin’s lips, short and sweet, there and gone. “That’s the point. When I come home with you it’ll be as your boyfriend.” He strokes his thumb over Taemin’s cheek, and the harder it gets to meet Jonghyun’s eyes the more Taemin wants to look at him. “I don’t want your parents finding out the wrong way, I don’t want to do that to them. You don’t, either.” Taemin just looks at him some more, and some more, until Jonghyun half-smiles, steps back. “Besides, I have work in the morning.”

Taemin knows he has to let him go to get to the next moment like this, but right now he’s married to this one. He doesn’t know what he’ll do with himself when it ends. If.

“Good night kiss,” he says.

Jonghyun pecks him on the lips again. This time Taemin holds onto him, wraps his arms around him and threads his fingers together at Jonghyun’s back.

“That doesn’t count.”

Jonghyun laughs, low and breathless, and Taemin lets him get as far as, “Aigoo, you’re so greedy,” before he leans in, licks the corner of Jonghyun’s mouth. Jonghyun blinks, his breathing hitches, his eyes darken, and Taemin goes hot all over, stomach opening up. He doesn’t wait for the bottom to hit him, doesn’t wait to find out where Jonghyun thinks this is going, just presses his lips to Jonghyun’s and kisses him for real, wet and hot and dirty. It takes Jonghyun no time at all to catch up, hands fisted in Taemin’s hair, pulling at his shirt, pushing him up against the wall, tongue fucking into his mouth, teeth sinking into his neck. Taemin started it and now he never wants to stop, he wants to spend the rest of his life right here. He gets a hand in Jonghyun’s hair, pulls his head up so they’re face-to-face again.

Harsh hallway light, three a.m. shadows, world pressing in on all sides, and the way Jonghyun looks at him makes him feel naked.

Taemin finds the breath to say, “I want you in my bed. I want you inside me,” and when Jonghyun groans, leans in for another kiss, Taemin keeps him where he is, stares into his eyes, somehow remembers how to talk, then makes himself say it out loud. “Please, hyung. Just for tonight. We can worry about everything else tomorrow.”

Jonghyun listens to him.

Taemin takes too long to remember the passcode, and his eyes take too long to adjust once they’re inside, and his room is too far away, right up until the moment he closes his door behind Jonghyun, and it’s just the two of them in Taemin’s room. The last time Jonghyun slept in this bed, it was neighborhoods over, years ago, long before Taemin learned how to make his heart flutter, his breath quicken, his dick grow hard. 

Jonghyun is here with him now.

Taemin keeps his eyes on him. Pulls his shirt over his head, steps out of his pants, shimmies his briefs down his legs and kicks them away. Jonghyun takes his time, first watching Taemin, then teasing him. It gets so bad Taemin can’t see without touching, and all it takes is two steps, legs shaking, and he’s got Jonghyun’s shirt all the way off and his skin under his hands, firm and smooth and warm everywhere. Under his lips, on his tongue, between his teeth, against his body. Jonghyun lets Taemin have whatever he wants, lets Taemin kiss and lick and bite his way down his neck and chest, lips parted, breathing harsh, eyes so dark Taemin’s knees give out. And then all he wants is to push his face into the open vee of Jonghyun’s fly. He holds out for Jonghyun’s dick, thick and hot and hard for him, in his hand, pressed against his lips.

Jonghyun’s fingers wind into Taemin’s hair, forcing his head back. Whatever Taemin’s face says, Taemin wants him to see, flushed and panting, eye contact like a kiss. Jonghyun takes that and gives him what he wants, pushes him onto his dick, then holds on tight while Taemin takes him deeper, deeper, filling himself up, Jonghyun’s taste on his tongue and white hot under his skin. He tries every last trick he knows to make Jonghyun’s legs tremble, make him bite his fist and swallow his moans, pull Taemin’s hair and fuck his mouth.

Too soon, too sudden, Jonghyun is yanking Taemin away, up into his arms, kissing and kissing and kissing him, hands stroking down his spine, cupping his ass. Taemin wants his dick, sucks on his tongue, tries to figure out how to bring him onto the bed without giving him up for a second. He’s still on that when Jonghyun takes him by the shoulders and pushes him down. The mattress catches his fall, creaks loudly under his weight. Taemin’s nerves trill for the time it takes Jonghyun to kick his pants the rest of the way off, before he crawls between Taemin’s legs and up his body and Taemin’s world narrows down to him.

This time when their lips meet and their tongues touch it feels like forever. Taemin runs his fingers down Jonghyun’s back, squeezes his hips between his thighs and rocks against him, half teasing half desperate, until Jonghyun gets the idea. Shifts so that their dicks press together, moves against him, sets a fire in Taemin’s stomach and sends stars shooting across his eyelids.

And then, Jonghyun’s lips pressed to his ear, “Lube.”

Flinging an arm out and slapping his hand where his bedside table should be gets Taemin nowhere. Before he can wriggle free, try to see something that’s not Jonghyun, Jonghyun laughs at him, airless, noiseless, succeeds where Taemin failed, little bottle in the corner of his drawer. And then he doesn’t do anything and doesn’t do anything, until Taemin is fit to explode all over him.

Tugging on Jonghyun’s arm, gripping his neck, finally playing with the short hairs at his nape, Taemin gives in, whines, “Hyung~”

Too loud. Jonghyun has to kiss him quiet. “It’s almost empty,” he says into Taemin’s mouth, breath puffing against Taemin’s lips as he smiles. “Pervert.”

Taemin tries to stick his tongue in his mouth, ends up licking his teeth, trying not to laugh, telling him, “That’s your fault.” That gets this noise out of Jonghyun, tiny and hitched, a kiss too, but Taemin pulls him back by his hair, just until their eyes meet, and says, “I think about you too much.”

After all the times Taemin has been right here, under Jonghyun, staring up into his face, hanging onto him, taking him in, the first finger still feels so big, and when Jonghyun’s dick presses into him, Taemin has to bite his shoulder to keep from crying out. And as always, Jonghyun tries to wait for him, panting into his neck, fisting his hands in the sheets by his head and fighting not to move, and Taemin tries everything, _anything,_ hooks his arms about his neck and his legs around his waist, strokes Jonghyun’s hair, arches into him, wiggles his hips, clenches down on his dick—

Jonghyun bites him. Hard. Pulls out, just to push back inside him, filling him up, taking his breath away. And again. Again. Again. So slow it’s too much, too slow, and if Taemin doesn’t get more, all he needs is more, he would do anything, more. more. more. He slides his hand down between their bodies, closes his fingers around his dick, matches Jonghyun’s thrusts, just trying to keep up with his heart, the bright white feeling taking him over, but Jonghyun pulls him back, takes his hand away. Presses it into the mattress by his head, threads their fingers together, rings clicking, and gives Taemin his mouth instead. Swallows his moans and slides his tongue against Taemin’s, and fucks him and fucks him and fucks him, until he has Taemin clawing at his back, biting back his name with every breath. 

_jonghyun jonghyun jonghyun jonghyun_

“Taeminnie,” Jonghyun moans into his neck. “Taeminnie.”

Taemin opens his eyes. Combs his fingers through Jonghyun’s hair, soft and pink and damp with sweat, tries to find the words in between Jonghyun taking him apart and putting him back together, bringing him closer and closer and closer to this feeling he can’t touch.

“I love you.”

Everything goes white.

 

When Taemin wakes up Jonghyun isn’t next to him.

He’s across the room, going through Taemin’s closet, probably looking for something he’s willing to wear. It’s too much work to do anything else, so Taemin lies there and watches him get dressed, muscles shifting under his skin in the half-light. Jonghyun doesn’t catch him at it until he’s turned around to collect his things from Taemin’s nightstand, then has a miniature heart attack, clutching his chest and gaping at Taemin until his shock fades into a glare. Still, when Taemin makes a grab for his hand, tugs him down, he comes willingly enough. He lets Taemin pick sleep out of his eyes and then kiss him good morning, too, and gives Taemin a smile when he pulls away.

“Go back to sleep, baby,” is the first thing out of Jonghyun’s mouth. Taemin could get used to this.

Instead he says, “I’ll walk you out,” and gets up with him. Jonghyun says he doesn’t need breakfast, but Taemin does. He scrounges up two bananas and two bottles of milk from the kitchen, and makes Jonghyun carry half so Taemin is free to hold his hand.

Jonghyun has the same idea. That takes them as far as the stairs, and out into the crisp early morning air, and now somehow they’re here already. Jonghyun parked too close to the building. It felt so much further last night. Jonghyun has maybe ten minutes.

Taemin’s throat closes up when he tries to talk, so he eats instead, leaning against Jonghyun’s car.

“I won’t tell you to call me, there’s no time anyway,” Jonghyun says when Taemin’s got his mouth full of banana. He pinches Taemin’s cheek, goes on before Taemin can even swallow, “Text me, okay? You’re not allowed to forget.”

“I won’t,” Taemin promises. He means it with all his heart, but it’s up to Jonghyun whether he believes him or not. “Hyung.”

“Yeah?”

“Which show are you doing today? I want to watch.”

Jonghyun takes a second too long before he comes out with, “Inkigayo,” and it sounds like a question to Taemin. He answers Taemin’s smirk with a smile, so bright it leaves Taemin dizzy, and tells him, “I’ll let you know as soon as I do. Make sure you check your phone.”

Part of Taemin wants to tell Jonghyun he might have lost it last night, just to see his face, but instead he makes another promise, “I will,” and then, again, “Hyung.”

“Taemin-ah,” Jonghyun says back.

Their eyes meet. Time doesn’t stop. Behind them the sun is rising, and it feels like it’s been forever since the last time Taemin got to look at Jonghyun in the light like this. It’ll probably be forever until the next time, too.

But right now.

There’s so much Taemin could say. He’s sorry for wasting time that should have been their own, hiding from the people who know them as much as the people who don’t, and he’s sorry their work has to come first. He’s happy that Jonghyun is here with him now, hiding in plain sight, and he’s happy that he’ll get to see Jonghyun on TV later, vote for “She Is” and share the most important three minutes of his day with him. He wishes he could kiss him, right here, right now.

“Just…I like you. Really, really. I like everything about you.”

Jonghyun smiles at him, an open secret.

“I know that.”


End file.
